BT 

.c 3 



THE 



DEITY OF CHRIST, 



BRIEFLY CONSIDERED, 



REV. ANDREW CARROLL. 






" Tor in him dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily." 

Col. ii. 9. 

'• Vilia transmittit ad postros, qui prsesentibus culpis ignoscit." 

Seneca. 



CINCINNATI: 

E . MORGAN AND CO., POWER PRESS. 

1846. 



3^ 



S" 



y- 



Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year of our 

Lord, 1846, by Rev. Andrew Carroll, in the Clerk's 

Office of the District Court of Ohio, 



- 



/ //fo 

60f 



CO 






PREFACE. 



In presenting this little volume to the public, our design is 
to be useful, not to write for writing's sake. We are aware 
that many volumes have been written on this subject, some in 
one way, and some in another. Many orthodox divines have 
written well on this topic, but their works are too voluminous 
& .ave a general circulation, and others, as we think, have 
not exactly followed the Scriptures, particularly in defining 
the title u Son of God" They apply this to the human nature 
of the Blessed Saviour. Among these writers we find the ven- 
erable Dr. A. Clark, Messrs. Ethan Smith, and Drew. 

The absolute Divinity of Christ has occupied our mind for 
the last six or seven years. And in writing these pages, we 
think, we have been patient in investigation, and prayerful in 
application. 

Our mind was called to investigate this subject some years 
ago, by reading a work published by Mr. Kinkade, which we 
think has slandered the character of the Saviour, by striving 
to rob him of his absolute divinity. Our appeal is made to the 



IV PREFACE. 

Scriptures, emphatically, as the ultimate and only certain proof 
of the Supreme Divinity of Jesus Christ. The Christian church 
is divided into what is termed, Trinitarians and Unitarians. 
The former believe the Scriptures reveal three persons in one 
God, called, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. The class called 
Unitarians is divided, and subdivided under various appella- 
tions, as Newlights, Campbellites, Universalists, &c. 

Unitarians of all grades and names, do not profess to believe 
that Jesus Christ is M God manifested in the flesh/' Newlights, 
both preach and pray in the name of Christ, still will not ad- 
mit He is equal with the Father, or that he is the Supreme God. 
Campbellites, are not so distinguished for directly denying the 
absolute Deity of Christ. Nevertheless, they have but little, if 
any claims to the creed of Trinitarians, as they deny the per- 
sonality of the Holy Spirit, and hold that the Word, (the Scrip- 
tures,) and the Spirit are synonimous, and to cap the climax, 
Mr. Alex. Campbell affirms in answer to a letter of Mr. B. W. 
Stone, "I have also disavowed Trinitarianism and every secta- 
rianism in the land."— Millen. Harb. vol. 4, No. 6, 1840. 

The point at issue between Trinitarians and all species of 
Unitarians, is not whether Christ be the Son of God, nor is it, 
whether Christ be a man. But it is, whether Christ be equal 
with God the Father. Here we affirm, and they deny. Again, 
whether this Christ be " God manifested in the flesh." As the 
Unitarian champion, Dr. Priestly says, we may say. " The 
truth is," says he, " there neither can, nor ought to be, any 
compromise between us. If you are right, we are not Chris- 
tians at all ; and if we are right, you are gross idolaters." 



PREFACE. V 

In connection with the remarks on the divinity of Christ, 
we httte added a few thoughts on the nature of his death. All 
of which, with meekness and prayer, we submit to the serious 
consideration of tiie reader — hoping, through divine mrcey 
they may be to him of some benefit. 

August 19, 1845. 



CONTENTS 



PART I. 

CHAPTER I. 

PAGE. 

Ancient Heathen Nations believed in the Doctrine of Three 
Persons in the Divine Nature. Hindoos, and Persian 
Triad — Orphic Theology — Greek Philosophers — An- 
cient Scandinavians — Japanese — Chinese, acknowledge 
a Triad, - 8 

CHAPTER II. 
Testimony of the Ancient Jewish Nation — The Jews had a 
Revelation from God. The Predictions of the Old Tes- 
tament are fulfilled in the New, - - - 13 

CHAPTER III. 

The Testimony of Pagan Writers, touching the Character of 
Jesus Christ. Tacitus — Sentorius — Celsus — Julian, 16 



CHAPTER IV. 

The Christian Church in the time of the Apostles, and after, 
held the Doctrine of the Supreme Divinity of Jesus 
Christ. Barnabas — Clemens — Romanus — Ignatius — 
Polycarp — Athenagorus — Tertullian, &c. - - 19 



CONTENTS. Vll 

CHAPTER V. page. 

The Primitive Christians held the Doctrine of Christ's Su- 
preme Divinity, as is proved by the fact, that all who 
rejected it were expelled from the Church as Heretics. 
Corinthians, Ebionites, Sabellians, Socinians, Arians, 
&c, expelled from the Church, &c. - -27 

CHAPTER VI. 
Objections made by the Unbelievers of Christ's Supreme Di- 
vinity, - 34 



PART II 

CHAPTER I. 
Scriptural Evidence of the Trinity in Unity: Gen. i. 1-26 — 
Aleim in the plural — The visible Jehovah raining fire 
from Jehovah in Heaven : Gen. xix. 24 — Lord God and 
his Spirit: Isa. xlviii. 16 — Divine Sonship. Watson, 
C. Butler, &c. ------- 43 

CHAPTER II. 

The Bible teaches the pre-existence of our Lord Jesus Christ. 

Christ sent into the world — He was in the Beginning 

— Before Abraham — Pre-existence before he was born 

of the Virgin, &c. 58 

CHAPTER III. 

The Divinity of Christ is proved by the names of Jehovah, &c. 
in the Scriptures being applied to him. God', Angel, 
Man, Lord God, Angel of the Lord, Jehovah's Messen- 
ger, Everlasting Father, 63 






Vlll 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER IV. page. 
Our Lord Jesus Christ possessed Divine Attributes. Attri- 
butes Indivisible — Christ Eternal — Omniscient — Omni- 
present — Immutable — Omnipotent — Judge of Quick 
and Dead, 102 

CHAPTER V. 

The Acts, and the Divine Worship of Christ, are proof of his 
Divinity. He created all things — Preserves all things 
— All things created for him — He is worshipped by An- 
gels, and Men, &c. - - - - - - 117 

CHAPTER VI. 

The Humanity of Christ — Hypostatic Union. The Gnostics, 
Eutyches, Apollinarians, refuted — Christ truly Man — 
Three classes of Scripture apply to Christ, - - 131 

CHAPTER VII. 

Jesus Christ made a Propitiatory Sacrifice for mankind, which 
is farther proof of his essential Divinity. The Lord 
God King of the Israelites — The Tabernacle — Court of 
the Lord — Civil and Ceremonial Laws — Offerings, Eu- 
charistical and Sacrificial, Propitiation, Atonement, 
Reconciliation — Sacrifice, Vicarious and Piacular, 147 

CHAPTER VIII. 

Faith Essential to Salvation — Justification and Sanctification 
by Faith, - 187 



PART I. 



CHAPTER I . 

The Heathen Nations believed in the doctrine 
of Three Persons in the Divine Nature. 

As the doctrine of Christ's Supreme Divinity, as set 
forth in the scriptures, is associated with a triad in the 
divine nature, it may be proper, briefly, to consider the 
belief of the Ancient Heathens on this point. For the 
candid will admit, that the Almighty God could as well 
instruct them touching this matter, as to do what the 
scripture affirms He had done, to make known to the 
Greeks and to the Barbarians, "both to the wise and to 
the unwise, the invisible things of him from the creation 
of the world," clearly "being understood by the things 
that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead." 
Rom. i. 20. So, we infer, that the very Godhead, [as 
well as the power thereof, may be known by the Gen- 
tiles, or heathens. Mr. R. W. Landis affirms, that Dr. 
Priestly, in his " Comparison of the Institutions of Mo- 
ses ivith those of the Hindoos" section 1, page 7, has 
2 



10 



HEATHEN NATIONS. 



the following quotation from the celebrated infidel, Mr 
Langles: '-'Many thousand years before these people 
(among which are included the Egyptians, Jews, and 
Chinese,) formed themselves into societies, or even 
thought of forming a religion, the civilized Indians 
adored the Supreme Being, Eternal, Almighty, and 
All-Wise, divided into three persons." So, we see, that 
in the opinion of this infidel, the ancient Indians wor- 
shipped a triune God. 

It is clear that the Hindoos have holden a triad in the, 
divine nature. " The manner of the three persons in 
the Godhead are Brahma, Veeshnu, and Seeva. Brah- 
ma they consider as the Father, Veeshnu as the Media- 
tor, whom they assert to have been incarnate, and Seeva 
as the destroyer and regenerator. The three faces of 
Brahma, Veeshnu, and Seeva, they always formed on 
one body, having six hands, or two to each person. — 
This method of delineating the Godhead is very ancient, 
universal, uncontroverted, and every where in their wor- 
ship; particularly in the celebrated cavern in the island 
of Elephanta." 

The Persian triad is well known, the names of which 
were Ormusd : Mither, and Ahriman; called by the 
Greeks, Oromasdes, Mithras, and Arimanius. Among 
them, too, the second person is called Mediator, and he 
is regarded the great agent in this world. The Egyp- 
tians have their triad, whom they named Osiris, Cneph, 
and Phtha, and afterwards Osiris, Isis, and Typhon. — 
These denote light, fire, and spirit. 



HEATHEN NATIONS. 1 I 

The Orphic theology, the most aged recorded in Gre- 
cian history, taught the same doctrine, styled Light, 
Council, Life. Suiclas says, " They express only one 
and the same power." Proclus, a Platonic philosopher, 
says, that Orpheus taught " the existence of one God, 
who is the ruler over all things ; and that this one God 
is three minds, three kings : he who is, he who has, or 
possesses, and he who beholds." These answers, says 
Proclus, "with the triad of Orpheus, viz. Phanes, Ura- 
nus, and Chronus." 

The Greek philosophers also acknowledged a triad. 
Plato named the triad " Mind, or Word, and the soul of 
the world." 

Parmenides, the author of the Eleatic philosophy, 
says, " The Deity is one and many." 

In the empires of Thibet and Tangut. three persons in 
one God is acknowledged in the popular religion. — 
These people worship an idol as a representation of a 
threefold God. 

The ancient Scandinavians represented a triad, whom 
they styled Oden, Frea, and Thor. The Romans, Ger- 
mans, and Gauls acknowledge a triad. The Romans 
and Germans worshipped Mairise, three Goddesses in- 
separable. 

The Japanese and Chinese anciently acknowledged a 
triad. So did Peruvians. In Cuquisaco, a province of 
Peru, they worshipped an image called Tangatanga; 
which, in their language, signifies " One in three and 
three in one" 



12 



HEATHEN NATIONS. 



There appears to be a universal impression in the 
minds of human beings of three persons in one God: 
hundreds of instances, in addition to the few cited above, 
might be produced, but let these suffice. 



CHAPTER II. 
Testimony of the ancient Jewish Nation. 

After presenting briefly the testimony of pagan na- 
tions touching a triad as peculiar to their idea of God, 
which goes to show, in some degree, the universal belief 
of three persons in one God, and that Jesus Christ, in 
the more enlightened and Bible sense, is in person one 
of these three, possessing wholly the infinite essence of 
that Being whom we term the eternal God, it may be of 
some utility to present to the candid reader the ancient 
Jewish idea of* this matter. 

The ancient Jews had credible evidence to believe in 
God, predicated in the old Testament scriptures. They 
had the idea of one God, Deut. vi. 4, " Hear, O Israel : 
The Lord our God is one Lord." Jesus, in speaking of 
this scripture, Matt. xxii. 37, 38, calls it the "first and 
great ^commandment." But the primitive Jews were 
instructed by their prophets to believe in and expect a 
Messiah, which signifies Christ, the anointed, which 
was to come into the world for the redemption of man. 
The first promise given of Christ is thus stated, Gen. 
hi. 15. "And I will put enmity between thee (Satan) 
and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed : it 



14 JEWISH TESTIMONY. 

shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel." 
Again, Haggai ii. 7. " And I will shake all nations, and 
the desire of all nations shall come : and I will fill this 
house with glory, saith the Lord of hosts." Again, 
Christ was to appear before the dominion of the Jews 
should be* taken away: "The sceptre shall not depart 
from Judah, nor a lawgiver from between his feet, until 
Shiloh come; and unto him shall the gathering of the 
people be." Gen. xlix. 10. Again, Christ was to be 
born, not according to the ordinary course of nature, but 
to descend from a virgin : " Therefore the Lord him- 
self shall give you a sign : Behold, a Virgin shall con- 
ceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Imman- 
uel." Isa. vii. 14. This son was to be born in pover- 
ty, and live in a poor and low estate : " For he shall 
grow up before him as a tender plant, and as a root out 
of a dry ground; he hath no form, nor comeliness; and 
when we shall see him, there is no beauty that we should 
desire him." Isa. liii. 2. This Messiah was to be bom 
in Bethlehem: "But thou Bethlehem Ephratah, though 
thou be little among the thousands of Judah, yet out of 
thee shall he come forth unto me that is to be ruler in 
Israel ; whose goings forth have been from of old, from 
everlasting." Micah v. 2. This ruler in Israel was to 
be a divine Shepherd, and lay down his life for the 
sheep. As the prophet saith, " Awake, O sword, against 
my Shepherd, and against the man that is my fellow, 
saith the Lord of hosts : smite the Shepherd, and the 
sheep shall be scattered." Zech. xiii. 7. The blessed 



JBWI8H TESTIMONY. 15 

Saviour was to be betrayed by his intimate friend: 
•' Yea, mine own familiar friend, in whom 1 trusted, 
which did cat of my bread, hath lifted up his heel 
against me." Psa. xli. 9. The very manner of his 
death was predicted in the Jewish scripture; to be by 
his enemies annoyed with gall and vinegar during his 
suffering: "They gave me also gall for my meat, and 
in my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink." Psa. lxix. 
21. And his hands and feet were to be pierced : " And 
they shall look upon me whom they have pierced." — 
Zee. xii. 10, and Psa. xxii. 16. And the very manner 
of distributing his clothes was predicted by the prophet : 
u They part my garments among them, and cast lots 
upon my vesture." Psa. xxii. 18. It is obvious from 
the above quotations, that the Jewish church possessed 
ample means of knowing the character of their Messiah. 
In their writings they style him the Redeemer, the 
Branch, and the Everlasting Father, &c. They held 
him to be the Son of God, the Jehovah. It is shown 
from this that they held his supreme divinity :— they 
paid him, the Messiah, divine worship; and yet they 
held that no creature should be thus worshipped, for 
their "first and great commandment" forbid such. They 
were to worship God only 5 but the Messiah was their 
God, 



CHAPTER III. 

The Testimony of Pagan writers touching the 
character of jesus christ. 

After Pontius Pilate put Jesus Christ to death, A. D. 
33, April 3, he wrote an account of him to the Emperor 
Tiberius. There had been an ancient decree, "that no 
one should be received for a deity unless he was ap- 
proved of by the Senate. Tiberius, in whose time the 
Christian religion had its rise, having received from 
Palestine, in Syria, an account of such things as mani- 
fested the truth of Christ's divinity, proposed to the Sen- 
ate that he should be enrolled among the Roman gods, 
and gave his own prerogative vote in favor of the mat- 
ter: but the Senate (without whose consent no deification 
could take place) rejected it, because the Emperor him- 
self had declined the same honor. Nevertheless the 
Emperor persisted in his opinions, and threatened pun- 
ishment to the accusers of the Christians." This is re- 
corded by a learned writer who lived a short time after 
the Apostolic age. 

The Christians were first persecuted in the reign of 
the Emperor Nero, A. D. 65. This persecution is men- 
tioned by two Roman historians, Tacitus and Senior ius. 



PAGAN TEST mo 17 

The latter says, " The Christians likewise were severe- 
ly punished — a sort of people addicted to a new and 
superstition,"— the worship of Christ. Pliny 
the Younger 3 was sent to the provinces of Bithynia and 
Pontus by the Emperor Trajan, A. D. 106-108, as his 
lieutenant with proconsular power. In these provinces 
the Christians were numerous, against whom Pliny, by 
orders of the Emperor, was obliged to use all manner 
of hardness. But being moderate in acting, he thought 
it best to write to the Emperor before he should execute 
the full force of the law. He therefore wrote to the 
Emperor, A. D. 107. The following is an extract of 
the letter : 

'•They affirm that the whole of their fault or error 
lay in this, they were wont to meet on a certain day be- 
fore it was light, and sing among themselves alternately 
a hymn to Christ as God." 

Again, Celsus, who lived A. D. 176, ridicules the 
Christians for their worship of Christ. He says that 
;: Jesus was owned by the Christians to be the Son of 
God." 

Lucian, his contemporary, was a bitter enemy of the 
Christians; he charges the Christians with "worship- 
ping their crucified impostor," as he malignantly styles 
our blessed Lord. 

Again, Julian " ridicules the adoration of Christ ; the 
Godhead of Christ, the birth of Christ from the Virgin; 
the conception by the Holy Ghost/' &c. In fine, the 



IS 



PAGAN TESTOfONY. 



doctrine of the supreme divinity of Christ was the doc- 
trine of the early Christians, so attested by secular and 
unbelieving writers, as well as it was the faith of all true 
Christians. 



CHAPTER IV. 

The Christian Church in the time of the APOS- 
TLES, AND AFTER; HELD THE DOCTRINE OF THE SU- 
PREME Divinity of Jesus Christ. 

1. We will begin with the testimony of Barnabas, 
who was the companion of St. Paul in some of his jour- 
neys, and wrote soon after Titus destroyed Jerusalem. — 
In the 5th section of his catholic epistle he says, Ci The 
Lord was content to suffer for our sins, although he be 
the Lord of the whole earth, to whom God said, before 
the beginning of the world, f Let us make man after our 
image and likeness. 7 " And in the 7th section he says, 
" If, therefore, the Son of God, who is Lord of all, shall 
come to judge both the quick and the dead, hath suffered, 
that by his stripes we might live, let us believe that the 
Son of God could not have suffered but for us." 

2.* Clemens Romanus, who was likewise a com- 
panion of the apostles, mentioned in the New Testament, 
and who wrote near the end of the first century, speaks 
as follows : " God is good to all, especially to those who 
flee to his mercy through our Lord Jesus Christ, to 

WHOM BE GLORY AND MAJESTY FOR EVER AND EVER," 

* Phil. iv. 3. 



20 TESTIMONY OF THE CHURCH. 

3. Again, Ignatius, a disciple of St. John, who suffer- 
ed martyrdom under the wicked emperor Trajan, A. D. 
107: (l Ignatius to the church which is at Ephesus in 
Asia, most deservedly happy, being blessed through the 
greatness and goodness of God the Father, and predes- 
tinated before the world began, being united and chosen 
through his true passion, according to the will of the 
Father, and Jesus Christ and his undefiled grace." — 
Again, says he, " There is one physician, both fleshly 
and spiritual, God incarnate, both of Mary and of God, 
all happiness by Jesus Christ our Lord." Again, " Ig- 
norance is taken away, and the old kingdom abolished, 
God himself appearing in the form of a man." Many 
other passages from the same writer we might adduce 
on the divinity of our Lord Jesus Christ. 

4. Polycarp, another of St. John's disciples, flourish- 
ed about the beginning of the second century, and suf- 
fered martyrdom under the emperor Marcus Antonius, 
in his epistle to the Philippians, speaks thus: "Mercy 
and peace from God Almighty, and the Lord Jesus 
Christ, our Saviour, be multiplied, — every living crea- 
ture shall worship Christ, — to whom be glory and maj- 
esty for ever and ever. Amen." When old and gray- 
headed, and bound at the stake, with his heart and voice 
engaged in addressing a throne of heavenly grace, he 
closes his prayer with these words, " I bless thee, I glo- 
rify thee, by the eternal and heavenly High Priest, Je- 
sus Christ, thy beloved Son, with whom, to thee, and the 
Holy Ghost, be glory both now and for ever, world 



TESTIMONY OF THE CHUBOH. 21 

without end. Amen." As Barnabas, Clemens Roman- 
us, Ignatius and Polycarp, lived in the first century, and 
were personally acquainted with some of the apostles, 
hence their testimony is of great importance, and is wor- 
thy of particular notice. 

5. Another strong testimony we have in the writings 
of the beloved Justin Martyr, who was born A. D. 103, 
and sealed his testimony with his own blood. In his 
dialogue with one Trypho, an infidel Jew, he calls 
Christ "the God of Israel w T ho was with Moses." And 
in the fourth book of his work against the infidels, he 
begins with asserting that " God was made man." In the 
same book he asserts also, that " Jesus Christ was the 
God who interrogated Adam, conferred with Noah, and 
gave him the dimensions of the ark ; who spoke to 
Abraham ; who brought the destroying judgments on 
the inhabitants of Sodom; who directed Jacob in his 
journey, and who addressed Moses out of the burning 
bush of Horeb " Again he says, " That the Word, 
that is the Son of God, always existed with the Father, 
I have largely demonstrated." 

6. Athenagorus, an Athenian philosopher, but con- 
verted to Christianity, A. D. 150, wrote about A. D. 175, 
speaks thus: " I have sufficiently demonstrated, that we 
(Christians) are not atheists, since we believe in one God, 
unbegotten, eternal, invisible, incomprehensible, known 
only by reason, and the Logos, surrounded by light and 
beauty, and spirit, and power, ineffable, who by his Lo- 
gos created, adorned and upholds the universe. We ac- 



22 TESTIMONY OF THE CHURCH 

knowledge also a Son of God. Nor let any one con- 
sider it ridiculous that we should attribute a Son to God : 
not as the poets who, forming their fables, exhibit gods 
in no respect better than men. We do not thus think 
concerning God the Father, or concerning the Son. — 
But the Son of God is the Word of the Father, in mani- 
festation and energy; by him and for him w r ere all 
things made, If you desire a further explanation of the 
meaning of Son on this point, I will endeavor to give 
you a brief one : He is the first born of the Father, but 
not as ever beginning to exist. Who is not filled with 
admiration, that we who declare God the Father, and 
God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit, showing both 
the power of their unity, and the distinction of their or- 
der, should be called perverse atheists?" 

7. Theophilus, who lived about A. D. 181, expressly 
acknowledges Christ to be God, and the Creator of the 
world. Says he, " When the Father said, let us make 
man in our image, after our likeness, he spoke to no 
other but his own Word and his own Wisdom, that 
the Son, and the Holy Ghost." 

8. Clemens Alexandrinus, who lived A. D. 194, says, 
" Let us give thanks to the only Father and Son, to the 
Son and the Father, to the Teacher and Master, with 
the Holy Spirit, one in all respects, in whom are all 
things, by whom all things are one, by whom is eternal 
existence, whose members we are, whose is the glory 
and the ages, who is the perfect good, the perfect beauty, 



rBBTDCONl OF THE CHURCH. 

all wis.-, and all just: to whom bo glory now and for 
ever. Amen." 

( J. Tertullian, who lived about A. D. 200, is very 
precise in his testimony on the supreme divinity of Jesus 
Christ. He says that the terms Lord, God, Lord of 
hosts, Almighty, King of Israel, &c, belong properly 
to Christ. He styles him "the omnipotent God" and 
in proof of this quotes Romans ix. 5. 

10. The testimony of the learned Origen, touching 
the divinity of Christ, is very appropriate. He was 
born at Alexandria, A. D. 185, and thus speaks concern- 
ing Christ : u If he is the image of the invisible God, 
the image itself is invisible. If he is the likeness of the 
Father, no time ever teas ichen he was not ; for when 
was God, who by St. John was called light, without the 
splendor of his own glory? That any one should pre- 
sume to assign a beginning to the Son, before which he 
was not, let him who dares speak thus, ' there was a time 
when he was not, 5 consider what he says, namely, that 
there was a time when reason, and wisdom, and life were 
not." Origen's comment on Matt. xi. 27, is thus stated : 
" For it is impossible that he who was begotten from 
eternity, and who was the first born before every crea- 
ture, should be known as to his real dignity by any but 
the Father who begat him." Again, he says, in a creed 
drawn up by him: "The things handed down by apos- 
tolical preaching are these: 1st. There is one God who 
created all things; Jesus Christ, who came into the 
world, was begotten of the Father before every crea- 



24 TESTIMONY OF THE CHURCH. 

ture ; he who was God was made flesh ; when he was a 
man he continued the same God that he was before. — 
They (apostles) also delivered that the Holy Ghost was 
joined in the same honor with the Father and the Son." 
Again: " There are some/ 5 says he, "indeed, who make 
a declaration concerning the Father, the Son, and the 
Holy Ghost, but not in sincerity nor in truth. Such are 
all heretics, who indeed profess the Father, the Son, and 
the Spirit, but not in a right and believing manner. For 
they either separate the Father from the Son, that they 
may ascribe one nature to the Father and another to the 
Son; or they erroneously compound them, thinking to 
make of them a compound God, or by supposing only 
three different names; but he who rightly confesses the 
truth, will indeed ascribe to the Father, the Son, and the 
Holy Ghost their distinct properties, but confesses there 
is no difference as to nature or substance." .* 

11, About the year of our Lord 246, Cyprian, a de- 
voted martyr to the truth, contributes decisive testimony 
to the divinity of our blessed Saviour. " The Lord 
says, I and my Father are one ; and again it is written, 
these three are one ; whoever does not hold this unity, 
does not hold the law of God — does not hold the truth 
unto salvation." Again he says, " If any one could be 
baptized among heretics, he might also obtain remission 
of sin, be sanctified and made the temple of God. I 
ask of what God? If of the Creator, he could not who 

* Origen's Comment, p. 49, 52. 



Ti '.STIMOXV OF THE CHURCH. 25 

did not believe in him. If of Christ, neither could he 
be his temple who denies Christ to be God. If of the 
Holy Ghost, since these three are one, how could the 
Holy Spirit be reconciled to him who is an enemy to the 
Father and Son % " And in proving- the supreme divin- 
ity of Christ quotes Rom. ix. 5, and uses our translation, 
" Of whom, as concerning the flesh, Christ came, who 
is over all, God blessed for ever." 

12. Dionysius, bishop of Alexandria, who flourish- 
ed A. D. 252, says that " Christ is (uncreated — the 
creator of all things — God by nature — immutable — 
Lord over all — Lord and God of Israel." Having been 
charged with saying there was a time when the Son 
was not, he affirms that he "always had acknowledged 
the co-eternity of the Son." 

His namesake, Dionysius, bishop of Rome, says : " If 
he (Christ) was made, there was a time when he was 
not, but he always was." 

13. Lucian, a proselyte of Antioch, a great biblical 
scholar, also a martyr to the cause of Christ, flourished 
A. D. 300. We have the following from a creed drawn 
up by him, which is very worthy of particular regard. 
Says he, " We believe, agreeable to evangelical and 
apostolical tradition, in one God, the Father Almighty, 
Creator and Maker of all things, and in one Lord Jesus 
Christ, his only begotten Son, God, by whom all things 
were made. — God of God, Whole of Whole, Alone of 
Alone, Perfect of Perfect, King of Kings, Lord of 
Lords; the Living Word, Wisdom, Life, the true Light, 

3 



26 TESTIMONY OF THE CHURCH. 

the Way of truth, the Resurrection, the Shepherd, the 
Door, Immutable, Unchangeable, the exact image of the 
Godhead, the Essence, Power, Council, and Glory of 
the Father," &c. Hillary says: "A synod of twenty- 
five holy bishops, who intended thereby to establish the 
catholic faith against the Sabellians and Arians, sanc- 
tioned this creed of Lucian. The council was held at 
Antioch, A. D. 341." 

The testimony of many other of the early fathers 
might be added here, such as Gregory, Thaumaturgus, 
Novation, Lactantius, and others, w T hich we have not 
room even to name. Let it suffice to say. that no w r riter 
can be found, before the Council of Nice, held in A. D. 
325, whose testimony is valid, who does not agree with 
the testimony quoted above. 



CHAPTER V. 

That Primitive Christians held the doctrine 
of Christ's Supreme Divinity is proven, by the 
fact, that all who rejected it were expelled 
from the Church as heretics. 

The Cerinthians, called so from Cerinthus, a disciple 
of Simon Magus, were expelled from the church for 
denying the supreme divinity of Jesus Christ. Cerin- 
thus believed that a super-angelic being, or influence 
was united to Christ at his baptism, which constituted 
him the Messiah. 

Irenaeus says, that the apostle " John designed by his 
gospel to remove the error which was sown among men 
by Cerinthus." 

The Cerinthians were soon succeeded by the Ebionites, 
who appeared early in the second century. They were 
named after Ebion, a disciple of Cerinthus, who adopted 
the sentiments of his teacher, denying not only Christ's 
divinity, but teaching that he was only a mere man- 
Irenseus, speaking of this sect, says : "If the Son shall 
make you free, ye shall be free indeed; but not knowing 
him who is incarnate of the Virgin, they are deprived 
of his gift, which is eternal life." 



28 HERETICS EXPELLED. 

After the Ebionites, Marcion, an Asiatic, appeared. 
Being expelled from his father's church for immorality, 
he went to Rome and espoused the cause of heresy. 
Like modern Unitarians, he mutilated the gospels and 
the whole Bible with freedom. We find that Justin 
Martyr took up his erroneous doctrine and refuted it. 
Turtullian wrote against him, and condemns him as a 
gross unbeliever, as having departed from the faith of the 
church of Christ. Polycarp also denounced him as a 
heretic and acknowledged him only as the " first born of 
Satan/' Concerning Marcion, Cyprian writes, "Our 
Lord, after his resurrection, instructing his disciples how 
they should baptize, says, l Go ye, therefore, and teach 
all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and 
of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.' Here he gives an 
intimation of a trinity, in whose sacrament the nations 
were to be baptized. Does Marcion believe the trinity? 
Does he believe the same Father the Creator, as we 
believe in? Does he acknowledge the same only Son, 
Christ, born of the Virgin Mary, who being the Word, 
was made flesh, and suffered for our sins? Marcion and 
all other heretics, held a very different faith." 

Again, Ncetus of Smyrna embraced certain opinions 
concerning Jesus Christ, which a few years afterwards 
were adopted by Sabellius of Africa, and have since 
received the name of Sabellianism. Sabellius rejected all 
the distinction of persons in God, and alleged that the 
trinity was only nominal, that the Father, Son, and Holy 
Ghost, were only three names of the one and the same 



HXRBTXCS i:\pklled. 20 

hypostasis or person. This doctrine was condemned by 
the church as a ruinous heresy. Ncetus was excom- 
municated from the church, and his doctrine condemned 
as heretical by two successive synods, and shortly after- 
ward Sabellius and his doctrine received the same end. 

Meryllus, bishop of Bozrah, adopted a modification of 
the system of Sabellius. He was opposed by Origen, 
and excluded from the Christian church, but soon after 
professing to be convinced^of his error, joined the church 
again, and his party became extinct. ' 

Another conspicuous advocate of skepticism concern- 
ing the Saviour, was Paul, of Samosata. He coincided 
in opinion almost with the modern Socinians. He was 
unanimously condemned, as a heretic, and deposed from 
the ministry. 

Early in the fourth century, the celebrated Arius, an 
eloquent ecclesiastic, taught that Christ was the most 
exalted of all creatures, but still a creature : that he was 
inferior to the Father, both in nature and dignity ; that 
Christ had nothing of man in him but the flesh to which 
the Logos was joined, which was the same as the soul in 
us. The Arians were first condemned by a council at 
Alexandria, in 320, under Alexander bishop of that city, 
who accused Arius of impiety, and caused him to be 
expelled from the communion of the church; and after- 
wards by 380 fathers in general council at Nice, assem- 
bled by Constantine in 325. This was the first general 
council ever convened by the Christian church. It is said 
that more than six hundred members were present. Of this 



30 HEKETICS EXPELLED. 

number only twenty-three dissented from the final judg- 
ment; and of these, twenty finally yielded and subscribed 
to the orthodox synodical creed, part of w T hich is as fol- 
lows: " We believe in one God Almighty, maker of all 
things visible and invisible, and in one Lord Jesus Christ, 
the Son of God, begotten of the Father, — God of God? 
Light of Light, very God of very God, begotten, not 
made, — who for us men, and our salvation, came down 
from heaven, and was incarnate: and made man, and 
suffered, — and on the third day rose again, and ascended 
into heaven, and shall come again to judge the quick and 
the dead. And in the Holy Ghost. And the Cath- 
olic and Apostolic church anathematizes those who say 
that there was a time when the Son of God was not, or 
that he w T as not before he was born ; or, that he was made 
out of nothing, or of another substance or essence, or 
that he w r as created or mutable" &c. This creed ex- 
pressed the solemn judgment of the w r hole church.* 

The above testimony is sufficient to show what the 
belief of the church was ; that in the times of Christ and 
his apostles and after, the Primitive church believed in 
the supreme divinity of Jesus Christ. All the testimony 
on this point, from the creation of the world to the pre- 
sent time, from Pagan, Jew and Christian, agree in proof 
thereof. 

We shall conclude this chapter, with a few reflections. 
1. The Unitarian writers boast of the validity of their 

* See Watson's Bib. Die. 



HERETICS EXPELLED. 31 

arguments, as being the " early opinion." Surely these 
obsequious disciples, anti-apostolic Cerinthians, Ebion- 
iteSj and Arians, may have had their skeptical glory. 
But, of all those innovators, not one of them suffered 
martyrdom for their unbelief of the supreme divinity of 
Christ. It pleased the world and Satan too well. How 
is it, that Dr. Priestly and his copiers, tell us, that the 
Primitive Church was Unitarian? If so, is it not aston- 
ishing, that when the Christians began to get into the 
error of Trinitarians, that not a word was heard against 
this " monstrous" error; and not a Trinitarian was con- 
demned for heresy. And according to Unitarians them- 
selves, the whole church was Trinitarian about the close 
of the third century. And still not a word was said 
against it. Then, how wicked is it in Priestly and 
others, to publish to the world, that the apostolic church 
was Unitarian, in the days of the apostles and afterwards, 
And to try to establish their error, by wresting the wri- 
tings of the Fathers from their legitimate import to make 
the unbaptized monster of Unitarianism to be the faith 
of the Fathers, and the belief of the Primitive church. 
That the honest reader may not think that we have false- 
ly represented the Unitarian writers, we shall present a 
few facts in the case. We have a quotation from Ori- 
gen, who lived only 130 years after the apostolic age. — 
It is as follows: "When they (catechumens) shall have 
become firmly compacted in the spirit, and when they 
shall bring forth fruit in it; then, as loving the heavenly 



32 HERETICS EXPELLED. 

wisdom, we may safely impart to them the hidden doc- 
trine respecting the ascent of the incarnate Word to the 
state in which he was God in the beginning."* This 
passage with a few others have been adduced by Dr. 
Priestly to show that in the days of Origen, "the great 
multitude of Gentile Christians were generally Anti- 
trinitarian, who rejected with abhorrence the doctrine of 
our Lord's divinity."! This proves either his ignorance 
or his wickedness. Again, we adduce a quotation from 
Mr. Jared Sparks, to show his inconsistency. Says he, 
"As for a trinity of persons, nothing was heard of it, till 
the deity of the Holy Ghost was decreed by the Coun- 
cil of Constantinople, near the close of the fourth century." 
This gentleman affects not to know that the whole 
Christian church believed in the personality and deity of 
the Holy Ghost always, and that the church condemned 
Macedonius, the only man that denied it. But, did not 
Mr. Sparks know, that the whole Christian church had 
by their representatives at the Council of Nice, held A. 
D. 325, upwards of thirty years before the time he says a 
trinity was first heard of, that they professed their belief 
in a trinity? Again, the same author says, Inquiry p. 
152, " No history, either sacred or profane, acquaints us 
with a single fact, from which it can be inferred that the 
Jews had any knowledge of a three-fold nature in the 
Deity. On the contrary, all history is against such an 

* Orig-. Comment, in Johan. p. 9. 

t Hist, of Early Opins. book 3, chap. 13, sec. 2. Works, vol. 6, 
p. 483. 



HBBBTICS EXPELLED. 33 

'"* The reader will see from the foregoing 

•ions that we have not misrepresented Unitarian 
\ ml though, we have mentioned but two authors, 
yet many more we might mention, but as they arc gener- 
ally copyists of those we have mentioned, let these suffice. 

2. We profess not to know, how the God of the uni- 
verse is one God and three persons. fBut the fact, is 
he so? The scriptures establish the fact. And it is the 
duty of every one to believe this doctrine is true, though 
he cannot know, how it is true. We say the Scriptures, 
for though we should receive the testimony of the Pri- 
mitive Fathers, nevertheless, if this doctrine be not proven 
fully and clearly by the Bible, it is not yet established 
by divine authority; hence not binding on any individual 
to believe, or disbelieve. I ask the unbeliever in the 
supreme divinity of Christ, if the doctrine be proven in 
the scriptures, whether he would not believe it? 

If he would not, then we have no controversy with 
him. But if the doctrine be clearly proven in the scrip- 
tures, and therefore he is willing to receive it, why then, 
always to be crying that it is a manifest contradiction, 
irrational, fyc. This surely can have nothing to do 
with the subject. We appeal for the truth of the doc- 
trine to the Bible, and if the Bible will not prove it true, 
Unitarians need not trouble themselves with trying to 
prove its absurdity, or self-contradiction, for the matter 
must be given up as lost, after all that has been said 
about Jew and Gentile testimony. 

*Rev. R. W. Landis. 

4 



CHAPTERVI. 

Let us present some objections made by the 
unbelievers of christ's supreme divinity. 



They say, " The Father, according to the Trinitarian 
doctrine, is God; the Son is God; and the Holy Ghost 
is God. Three cannot be one, three units cannot be one 
unit." This objection is not made against the doctrine of 
Trinitarians, but against the " inconsistency of tri-theism 
with the unity of God." But the objection would be 
good against the Trinitarians, if they admitted the exis- 
tence of three Gods, and of course against the divinity of 
Christ as one of the three ; but this is not admitted by any 
enlightened Trinitarian, hence it is inapplicable and 
powerless. 

Trinitarians believe in the scriptural account of Jeho- 
vah, that " He is one perfect existence, underived and 
unlimited ; and that this one perfect existence is in the 
scriptures declared to be the Father, Son and Holy 
Ghost." These are called persons. But, what is the true 
meaning of the word person? In the application of the 
term to the Deity, no living being, either man or angel, 
can tell. Men cannot tell what the human soul is, or even 
the body And who can tell how the Father, Son and 



OBJECTIONS OF (7NBELISVSB9. 35 

I [oly Ghost arc three persons, and but one God? Can 
the Unitarians inform us, how God is God. 

Indeed, it appears to us, that the " unbelievers" try to 
prove what the scriptures do not teach, and arc appealing 
nearly always to reason, as they call it, instead of apply- 
ing to the scriptures for their proof: just as if by reason 
they could find out God. It is enough that the scrip- 
tures reveal the fact, and it should be the duty of fall- 
al men to receive the truth, with meekness and thanks- 
giving. Again, Unitarians offer as an objection the 
mysteriousness of the proposition, " that God can be one 
in one sense, and three in another." We grant its mys- 
teriousness, but God has thought proper to reveal him- 
self thus in the scriptures; and demands our belief of 
what he reveals, and that which is essential to our salva- 
tion. The proposition asserted by Trinitarians, and 
denied by Unitarians, ." that God is tri-personal," is a 
profound mystery, implying infinite existence, which no 
finite being in the universe can have a definite idea of. 
Neither Trinitarians nor Unitarians can by any possible 
mental effort discern, whether the fact asserted be true 
or false, or whether the ideas denoted by the words 
" God and tri-personal," agree or disagree. 

Until this can be done, nothing is made out by either par- 
ty. If the research is to be conducted as an object of "men- 
tal discernment, or philosophical inquiry," without resting 
the matter on Divine Revelation, then there must necessa- 
rily be distinct ideas in the mind, before it can compare 
them, or discern the agreement or disagreement of a propo- 



36 OBJECTIONS OF UNBELIEVERS. 

sition, whose truth or falsehood, the mind can conceive.* 
Then, unless. the advocates of Unitarianism avow that 
they have distinct ideas of the infinite God, they must 
give up the argument, or maintain that, unlike all other 
rational beings, they can reason without distinct ideas of 
the essence of the supreme God, yet they can have dis- 
tinct ideas of what we call a trinity. But, before they 
go any farther, we challenge them to prove this. In doing 
so, it is more than probable, they will find it as difficult 
to do, as to give distinct ideas of the essence of God. If 
they ask us, " why do Trinitarians adopt it as essential 
to their creed which is so unintelligible?" — we answer 
because God hath revealed it. Then, the mysteriousness 

* " That three Beings should be one Being, is a proposition which 
certainly contradicts reason, that is, our reason ; but it does not from 
thence follow, that it cannot be true, for there are many proposi- 
tions which contradict our reason, and yet are demonstrably true. 
One is the very first principle of all religion, the being of a God: 
for that anything exists without a cause, or that anything should 
be the cause of its own existence, are propositions equally contra- 
dictory to our reason: yet one of them must be true, or nothing 
could ever have existed. 

"Can reason teach us how the sun's luminous orb can fill a circle 
whose diameter contains many millions of miles, with a constant 
inundation of successive rays during thousands of years without any 
perceivable diminution of that body from which tfiey are contin- 
ually poured, or any augmentation of those bodies on which they 
fall, and by which they are continually absorbed? Can our reason 
tell us, how any union can be formed between material and imma- 
terial essences'? Or how the wounds of the body can give pain to 
the soul; or the anxiety of the soul emaciate and destroy the 
body?" Jenyn's Internal Evidence, page 57, 63. 



OBJECTIONS OF r \m:i,m;yi:rs. 37 

of the doctrine lies in the nature of the thing which it 

lares, and not in the fact declared. Certainly it is 

with but lit'! $$ can be alleged 

an objection against any doctrine. a3 mystery envelopes 

arly every thing: the soul of man, the body of man, 
the vegetable, the atom, &c. But, if Unitarians be not 
disposed to rest their faith on reason alone, but on the 
Scriptures, to the Scriptures we likewise appeal, and by 
them, and them only, to stand or fall. 

We have deemed it proper to make the above remarks 
in connection with the evidences produced, apart, as we 
may say, from the Bible, with the exception of a few 
quotations touching the belief of the ancient Jewish 
church. But, it may be thought, that all this labor, to 
prove what no person cares about, is at least lost time. 
We are aware that Socinian writers, and others of nearly 
like heresy, try to make it appear that the doctrine of the 
Trinity is useless, or nearly so. But this is not so. The 
knowledge of God is fundamental to religion ; and as 
we know nothing of Him, but what he has been pleased 
to reveal, and as these revelations have all moral ends, 
and are designed to promote piety, and not to gratify 
curiosity, all that he has revealed of himself in particu- 
lar, must partake of that character of fundamental im- 
portance, which belongs to the knowedge of God in the 
aggregate. " This is life eternal, that they might know 
thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom thou hast 
sent." Nothing, therefore, can disprove the fundamen- 



38 OBJECTIONS OF UNBELIEVERS. 

tal importance of the Trinity in unity, but that which 
will disprove it to be a doctrine of Scripture.* 
Jj r Again, it essentially affects our views of God as the 
object of our worship, whether we regard him as one in 
essence, and one in person, or admit that in the unity of 
this Godhead there are three equally Divine persons. 
These are two very different conceptions. Both cannot 
be true. The God of those who deny the Trinity, is not 
the God of those who worship the Trinity in unity, nor 
on the contrary ; so that one or the other worships what 
is "nothing in the world:" and for any reality in the 
object of worship, might as well worship a pagan idol, 
which also, says St. Paul, "is nothing in the world." 

They do not now attempt to prove the " Socinian heresy 
from the Scriptures ; this has long been given up, and 
the main effort of all modern writers on this side has 
been directed to cavil at the adduced proofs of the oppo- 
site doctrine." On this authority alone they might be 
accounted idolaters, worshipping of what "is nothing in 
the world," and not the God revealed in the Bible, t 

Again : the doctrine that destroys the divinity of Our 
Lord Jesus Christ, is ruinous on another account, " our 
love to God, which is the sum of every duty, is most 

* Watson's Theol. Inst. 1 vol. p. 452. 
tWitsius, quoted by Rev. R. Watson, Inst, vol 1 , p. 454 : says "JNul* 
la etiam religio est, nisi quis verum Deura colat; non colit verum 
Deum, sed cerebri suifigmentum, qui non adorat in sequali divini- 
tatis maj estate Patrem, Filiura, et Spiritum Sanctum. I nunc, et 
doctrinam earn ad praxin inutilem esse clama, sine qua nulla Fidei 
aut, Pietatis Christinse praxis esse potest." 



OBJECTIONS OF I NBBOTVBB8. 

intimately and essentially connected with the doctrine in 
question. ( tod's love to us is the ground of our love to 
him. The love of God to man in the gift of his Son is 
that manifestation of it on which the Scriptures most 
emphatically and frequently dwell, and on which they 
establish our duty of loving God and one another; but 
our estimate of the love which he gives must be widely 
different, accordingly as we regard the gift bestowed. — 
as a creature or as a Divine person, — as merely a son 
of man, or as the Son of God. If the former only, it is 
difficult to conceive in what this love, constantly repre- 
sented as "unspeakable" and astonishing, could consist. 
Indeed, if we suppose Christ to be man only, on the 
Socinian scheme, or as an exalted creature, according to 
the Arians, God might be rather said to have "so loved 
his Son" than us, as to send him into the w^orld, on a 
service so honorable, and which was to be followed by 
so high and vast a reward, that he, a creature, should be 
advanced to universal dominion and receive universal 
homage as the price of temporary sufferings, which, upon 
either the Socinian or Arian scheme, were not greater 
than those which many of his disciples endured alter him? 
and in many respects, not so great." For the same rea- 
son, the doctrine which denies Our Lord's divinity dimin- 
ishes the love of Christ himself, takes away its gener- 
osity and devotedness, presents it under views infinitely 
below those contained in the New Testament, and weak- 
ens the motives which are drawn from it to excite our 
gratitude and obedience. " If Christ was in the form of 



40 OBJECTIONS OF UNBELIEVERS. 

God, equal with God, and very God, it was then an act 
of infinite love and condescension in him to become man ; 
but if he was no more than a creature, it was no surpri- 
sing condescension to embark in a work so glorious; 
such as being the Saviour of mankind, and such as would 
advance him to be Lord and Judge of the world, to be 
admired, reverenced, and adored both by men and an- 
gels."* 

^As a creature, no matter however highly exalted, he 
would have profited by exaltation after redeeming the 
world. But considered as divine, Christ gained nothing. 
God is full and perfect, and essentially glorious in and 
of himself, exalted " above blessing and praise;" hence 
our Lord prays, that he might be glorified with the Fath- 
er, with the glory which he had " before the world was f 
hence "to deny the divinity of Christ alters the very foun- 
dations of Christianity, and destroys all the powerful 
arguments of the love, humility and condescension of 
Our Lord, which are the peculiar motives of the 
gospel."f 

"The doctrine of satisfaction or atonement depends 
upon his divinity : and it is, therefore, consistently denied 
by those who reject the former. So important, however, 
is the decision of this case, that the very terms of our 
salvation and the ground of our hope are affected 
by it n J 

* Waterland's " Importance of the Doctrine of the Trinity." 
t Dr. Sherlock's Vindication. 
: Watson's Inst. vol. 1, p. 458. 



OBJECTIONS OF CNBBLIHVHHB. 41 

dal of the divinity of Christ lowers in 
i86 of what the apostle calls, M the exceeding 
sinfulness of sin," and weakens the hatred of it among 
;. and of course encourages it. And totally changes 
the character of Christian experience, and takes away 
those strong emotions attendant on repentance. But 
this is not all. The Christian's trust and hope and 
joy is materially marred, and Bible religion goes to 
the moles and to the bats. Hence, how important 
is it to have consistent views of Our Lord Jesus 
Christ? Let none say that it is of but little moment : on 
the contrary it is of vast moment, — all depends upon 
it in time and in eternity. In the foregoing pages we 
have at least presented reasonable evidence in favor of 
our Saviour's supreme divinity; nevertheless, this we 
freely grant is insufficient to establish beyond contradic- 
tion his divinity, apart from the Holy Scriptures. Then 
in introducing'the scripture evidence, we shall commence 
with the " Trinity in Unity and Unity of the Trinity.'' 
Then show that Jesus Christ is one of the three persons, 
God over all, blessed forever more. From the foregoing 
chapters, we may conclude, that it is beyond doubt that 
the God of the universe has endued all men in all ages 
with evidence of His eternal power and, Godhead. And 
although men live wickedly, nevertheless, the things 
that are see?i, carry with them indubitable testimony, 
that some being is to be worshipped, and that this being 
is to be adored as a Being of three persons in one essence. 
The primitive Jews had not only the evidence of visi- 



42 



OBJECTIONS OF UNBELIEVERS. 



ble things, but the prophecies to inform them, by the 
light of the spirit, that the Shiloh, the sent of God, the 
Son, the Messiah, was a person of the Godhead, and 
that this Godhead was " One Lord," Deut. vi. 4. Thus 
stating their belief in the personality and unity of the 
Deity. In addition to this, the testimony of pagan wri- 
ters touching Jesus Christ is farther proof of his Deity ; 
and as the Christian church in the time of the apostles 
and afterward held the supreme divinity of the Saviour, 
the evidence still presses on the mind that Jesus is the 
Son of God, and equal with the Father. And this is 
still more obvious, from the fact, that all those who 
rejected the doctrine of Christ's absolute divinity were 
expelled from the church as heretics, 



PART II. 

CHAPTER I 
Scriptural Evidence of the Trinity in Unity 

By some, it may be thought, that it is not necessary 
to introduce, on the plurality of persons in the Godhead, 
any evidence, seeing that the evidence in favor of Christ's 
divinity is all sufficient. Conscious of the force of this 
idea, we shall not trouble the reader with many scrip- 
tural evidences on this topic. Notwithstanding, we see 
no just reason not to present evidence on this point, as 
it appears to be the commencement of the whole matter 
on hand. And if there be three persons in the God- 
head, Jesus Christ necessarily is one of them ; the second 
adorable one of the eternal Trinity. Hence, when we 
try to prove the Trinity, we give the same proof of his 
hypostasis or personality, for this plain reason, we pro- 
ceed to the Biblical proof of the Trinity. 

The point disputed, is not whether there be one God : 
for in this we all agree. Neither, whether there be 



44 TRINITY AND UNITY. 

three Gods; for in this we likewise agree. But, whether 
there be in the divine Essence one person, or three. — 
We affirm and they deny. 

We find in the first verse of the first chapter of the 
Bible, this language : " In the beginning God created the 
heaven and the earth." Here the word God, is from 
Aleim, which is the plural number, though annexed to 
a verb of the singular number, which evidently shows 
there are three persons in the divine nature. Again, in 
the 26fh verse of the same chapter, we read, " And God 
said, let us make man in our own image." Here, like- 
wise, persons in the Godhead are not only implied, but 
expressed, " Let us make man." In the 18th chapter, 
second verse of Genesis, God appeared to Abraham in 
the form of "three men." These three are mentioned 
in verse 10th as one person only, " And he said, I will 
certainly return unto thee," &c. Again, "And the 
Lord God said, Behold the man is become as one of us 
to know] good and evil." The phrase " Lord God," 
and "us" suggest the tri-unity of the Godhead. The 
following passages are to the same purpose : " Go to, 
let us go down, and there confound their language." — 
Gen. xi. 7. " Wo unto us ! who shall deliver us out of 
the hand of these mighty Gods ? These are the Gods 
that smote the Egyptians w T ith all the plagues in the wil- 
derness." 1 Sam. iv. 8. Of the last passage, the ene- 
mies of the doctrine we advocate may say, that the term 
Gods was a heathen notion of the wicked Philistines, and 
not the true scriptural and Christian idea of God. In 



TUIMTY AM) I'MTV 15 

inswer we say, though the Philistines may be called 
heathens, nevertheless, they only express what God has 
expressed of himself in the holy scriptures; hence, they 
expressed the truth. And (his truth we apply to prove 
a plurality of persons in the Godhead.* In Genesis, 
chapter xix. 24, we have these words: u Then the Lord 
rained upon Sodom, and upon Gomorrah, brimstone and 
fire from the Lord out of heaven." We have here the. 
visible Jehovah who conversed with Abraham, raining 
the storm of vengeance from another Jehovah out of hea- 
ven, who was therefore invisible. 

The unity of the deity is likewise fully shown in the 
holy scriptures, " Hear, O Israel, Jehovah our God is 
one Jehovah." Deut. vi. 4. "O Lord God of Israel, 
which dwellest between the cherubims, thou art the God, 
even thou alone, of all the kingdoms of the earth." 2 
Kings xix. 15. Hence, we see that the scriptures set 
forth three persons in one God. But we have still more 
testimony from the scripture to adduce. The cry of the 
seraphims to God, when sitting upon his throne, high 
and lifted up, and his train filled the temple. " And 
one (seraphim) cried unto another, and said, Holy, holy, 
holy is the Lord of hosts; the whole earth is full of 
his glory." This distinct trine act of devotion, is an- 
swered by the voice of Jehovah from the " throne high 
and lifted up." "Also," says the prophet, " I heard the 
voice of the Lord, saying, Whom shall I send, and who 

* By the term Gods, we understand persons. 



46 TRINITY AND UNITY. 

will go for us" Isa. vi. 3-8. Each of the holy ones 
in the Godhead is addressed with his appropriate and 
equally grand appellation of Holy, holy, holy, the Fath- 
er, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. The apostle John ap- 
plies this vision of Isaiah to Christ, as is most likely, 
where he says, " These things said Esaias, when he saw 
his glory, and spake of him," that is of Christ. John 
xii. 40, 41. This vision all acknowledge to include 
the Father; St. John applies it to Christ, and the apostle 
Paul applies it to the Holy Ghost. " Well spake the 
Holy Ghost by Esaias the prophet unto our fathers, say- 
ing, Go unto this people, and say, Hearing ye shall hear, 
and shall not understand ; and seeing ye shall see, and 
not perceive," &c. Acts xxviii. 25, 26, 27. Compare 
this with Isaiah vi. 9, 10. There can be no doubt but 
that both, St. John and St. Paul, quote from, and allude 
to, Isaiah's vision. And here we have a trinity of per- 
sons in defiance of all criticism on this subject. On this 
passage in Isaiah, the Rev. R. Watson says in his The- 
ological Institutes, vol. 1, part 2, p. 471, " Now let all 
these circumstances be placed together — the place, the 
holy place of the Holy Ones; the repetition of the hom- 
age, three times, Holy, holy, holy, — the one Jehovah 
of hosts, to whom it was addressed, — the plural pronoun 
used by this one Jehovah, us; the declaration of an 
evangelist, that on this occasion Isaiah saw the glory of 
Christ; the declaration of St. Paul, that the Lord of 
hosts who spake on that occasion was the Holy Ghost ; 
and the conclusion will not appear to be without most 



racoTY AND UNITY. 47 

powerful authority, both circumstantial and declaratory 
that the adoration, Holy, holy, holy, referred to the Di- 
vine three in the one essence of the Lord of hosts. Ac- 
cordingly, in the book of Revelation, where ! the Lamb 1 
is so constantly represented as sitting upon the divine 
throne, and where he by name is associated with the 
Father, as the object of the equal homage and praise of 
saints and angels ; this scene from Isaiah is transferred 
into the fourth chapter, and the c living creatures, 7 the 
seraphim of the prophet, are heard in the same strain, 
and with the same trine repetition, saying, 'Holy, holy, 
holy, Lord God Almighty, which was, and is, and is to 
come." ' Isaiah xlviii. 16, makes a three-fold distinction 
and limitation : " And now the Lord God, and his Spirit, 
hath sent me." This agrees with our Lord's own dis- 
courses, who speaks of himself and the Spirit. And this 
strengthens the application, by bringing the phrase 
nearer to that so often used by our Lord, who speaks of 
himself and the Spirit, being sent by the Father. " The 
Father which sent me — the comforter whom I send unto 
you from the Father, who proceedeth from the Father." 
John xv. 26. The following passages in the New Tes- 
tament are familiar to every one who reads the Bible : 
• ; Eaptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the 
Son, and of the Holy Ghost" Matt, xxviii. 19. "May 
the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, 
and the communion of the Holy Ghost, be with you all, 
amen." 2 Cor. xiii. 14. " Now there are diversities of 
gifts, but the same Spirit. And there are differences of 



48 TRINITY AND UNITY. 

administrations, but the same Lord. And there are di- 
versities of operations, but it is the same God which 
worketh all in all." 1 Cor. xii. 4, 5, 6. Here the Spi- 
rit, the third person, is mentioned, the Lord the second 
person, and the "same God which worketh all in all," 
the first person. The apostle Peter to the strangers 
scattered throughout Pontus, Galatia, &c, says: "Elect 
according to the fore-knowledge of God the Father, 
through sanctification of the Spirit, unto obedience and 
sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ ; grace be unto 
you and peace be multiplied." 1 Peter i. 2. We shall 
close this part of the subject with one more text, found 
1 John v. 7. " For there are three that bear record in 
heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost : and 
these three are one." We are aware that even some 
strong believers in the holy trinity object to the genuine- 
ness of this text ; Griesbach and others. But, if this 
text, and some others, were left out of the argument in 
fovor of the trinity, it would still have ample proof to 
establish it beyond successful contradiction. 

Nothing can be more clear than this, that the Father 
sent the Son, and, therefore, the Father and the Son are 
distinct; that the Father and the Son sent the Holy 
Ghost, and that, therefore, the Father, and the Son, and 
the Holy Ghost, are distinct persons, and that each of 
these distinct persons is called God. In the language of 
inspiration this is true of the Father, which, we suppose, 
none doubts. a The only true God." Johnxvii. 3. "The 
Word was God." John i. 1. " The Word was made 



TKIMTY 1ND UNITY. 19 

Besh and dwelt among us." John i. 14. From these 
texts the plain conclusion is, the Word which was God. 
the same which was made flesh and dwelt among us, is 
the very and eternal God. Again, to "lie unto the Holy 
Ghost" is to lie "unto God." Acts v. 3, 4. In view 
of these last quotations, we cannot perceive any great 
necessity for calling forth this disputed text. (1 John v. 7.) 
But certainly there is no valid argument against it, and 
there never can be. The learned opponents of this text 
assert, that " It is not found in a single Greek manuscript 
written before the sixteenth century." Yet they grant 
that there are but about four hundred MSS. collated, and 
there are thousands that are in existence which those cri- 
tics have never seen. The Paris library has two hun- 
dred and two, of which but forty-nine have been collated. 
From the vast number in the Vatican library, as all the 
learned agree, but only thirty-four of which have been 
collated. " In the Grand Ducal library at Florence 
alone, there are at least one thousand Greek MSS. of 
the New Testament, and of these only twenty-four have 
been collated." And very few of the Greek MSS. now 
exist. In Diocletian's time many thousands were burned 
by the hand of persecution. And in the great fire of 
Constantinople, A. D. 476, there perished in the flames 
120,000 valuable manuscripts, so that the number col- 
lated bears a very little proportion to those destroyed. — 
Yet from the few remaining, our learned antagonists 
peremptorily conclude, "that this verse under discussion 
is not to be found in a single Greek MSS. written before 
5 



50 TRINITY AND UNITY. 

the sixteenth century." It might have been found 
in 999 MSS. for all they know, or after all they possi- 
bly may find out on the subject. 

The reader may see this text, (1 John v. 7,) vindica- 
ted in Horn's Introduction, vol. 4, page 437. 

However, it is very true, that all this text is comprised 
in John's gospel. Does the text in 1 John v. 7, say, 
that " there are three that bear record in heaven, the 
Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost." In John viii. 
18, it is said, " I am one that bear witness of myself, and 
the Father that sent me beareth witness of me." From 
this we see the Father bears record in heaven, the Son 
bears witness in heaven. John viii. 14. The Holy 
Ghost, or Comforter, bears testimony of Christ in hea- 
ven. "But when the Comforter is come, whom I will 
send unto ypu from the Father, even the spirit of truth, 
which proceedeth from the Father, he shall testify of 
me." John xv. 26. "I and my Father are one." — 
John x. 30. These texts express all that we find in 1 
John v. 7.* 

* The letter of that accomplished scholar, Charles Butler, Esq., 
(in the second volume of his Hone Biblicoe,) to Dr. Marsh, con- 
tains evidence of great weight in proof of the authenticity of the 
text in 1 John v. 7. 8. This letter can be found in the Panoplist for 
May, 1811, page 534. Part of this letter we beg leave to present to 
our readers. 
44 The Rev. Hereert Marsh: 

Dear Sir, — When I had last the pleasure of your company, 1 
mentioned to you that I thought the argument in favor of the 



TKIMTY AM) UNITY. 5] 

2 I' may be proper for us in this place, to adduce a 
few Scriptural proofs for the unity of the Trinity. "By 
the Word o£ the Lord were the heavens made: and all 

>f the Three Heavenly 'Witnesses, 1 John, chap. v. 5, 7, from 
the confession o( faith presented to the Catholic Bishops to Ilune- 
ric in 484, had not been sufficiently attended to: I now beg leave to 
trouble you with my thoughts upon it. I shall first copy Mr. Arch- 
deacon Travis's account of it, from his letters to Mr. Gibbon, 3rd 
edition, page 57. 

" In A. D. 484, an assembly of African Bishops was convened at 
Carthage by King Huneric, the Vandal and the Arian. The style 
of the edict, issued by Huneric on this occasion, seems worthy of 
notice. He therein requires the orthodox Bishops of his dominions 
to attend the council thus convened, there to defend by the Scrip- 
tures the consubstantiality of the Son with the Father, against cer- 
tain Arian opponents. At the time appointed, nearly four hundred 
Bishops attended this council from the various provinces of Africa, 
and from the isles of the Mediterranean; at the head of whom stood 
the venerable Eugenius, Bishop of Carthage. The public profes- 
sions of Huneric promised a fair and candid discussion of the divin- 
ity of Jesus Christ; but it soon appeared that his private intentions 
were to compel, by force, the vindicators of that belief to submit to 
the tenets of Arianism. For when Eugenius, with his anti-Arian 
prelates, entered the room of consultation, they found Cyrila, their 
chief antagonist, seated on a kind of throne, attended by his Arian 
coadjutors, and surrounded by armed men; who quickly, instead or 
waiting to hear the reasoning of their opponents, offered violence 
to their persons. Convinced by this application of force, that no 
deference would be paid to arguments, Eugenius and his prelates 
withdrew from the council room; but not without leaving behind 
them a protest, in which (among other passages of Scripture) this 
verse of St. John is thus especially insisted upon, in vindication of 
the belief to which they adhered: That it may appear more clear 
than the light, that the Divinity of the Father, the Son, and the 



52 TRINITY AND UNITY. 

the host of them by the breath of his mouth." Psa. 
xxxiii. 6J Here the Trinity created the world; but 
this Trinity is only one Lord. " I am the Lord that 

Holy Spirit is one, see it proved by the Evangelist St. John, vjho 
writes thus: There are three which bear record in heaven-, the 
Father, the Word, and the Holy Spirit, and these three are One.' 

" This remarkable fact appears to be alone amply decisive as to 
the originality of the verse in question. The manner in which it 
happened seems to carry irresistable conviction with it. It was not 
a thing- done in a corner, a transaction of solitude or obscurity. — 
It passed in the metropolis of the kingdom, in the court of the 
reigning prince, in the face of the opponents, exasperated by con- 
troversy, and proud of royal support, and in the presence of the 
whole congregated African Church. Ivor is the time when this 
transaction happened, less powerfully convincing than its manner. 
Not much more than three centuries had elapsed from the death of 
St. John, when this solemn appeal was thus made to the authority 
of this verse. Had the verse been forged by Eugenius and his 
Bishops, all Christian Africa would have exclaimed at once against 
them. Had it even been considered as of doubtful original, their 
adversaries, the Anans, thus publicly attacked by this protest, 
would have loudly challenged the authenticity of the verse, and 
would have refused to be in any respect concluded by its evidence. 
But nothing of this kind intervened. Cyrila, and his asscciates, 
received its testimony m sullen silence; and by that silence admit- 
ted it to have proceeded from the pen of St. John. 

With great respect, dear sir, I am, &c., 

CHARLES BUTLER. 
January 7, 1806." 

MacKnight, in his translation, says, that some of the most an- 
cient and correct Vatican Greek copies have this verse. All Ste- 
phen's MSS., seven in number, and which contain the whole epis- 
tles, have this verse. The Vulgate versions, in most of the MSS- 
and the printed editions, have it Tertullian bears testimouy in 



TRINITY AND UNITY. 53 

maketh all things, that stretcheth forth the heavens 
alone: that sprcadcth abroad the earth by myself." — 
Isa. xliv. 24. " It follows, therefore, that the Word and 
Spirit did not make the heavens, or that the Father with 
his Word and Spirit are alo?ie the Lord and Creator of 
all things." (Landis.) "That men may know that 
thou, whose name alone is Jehovah, art the Most High 
over all the earth." Psa. lxxxiii. 18. Christ is Jeho- 
vah, " and this is his name w T hereby he shall be called, 
the Lord our righteousness." Jer. xxiii. 6. The 
Holy Ghost, or Spirit, is likewise Jehovah, " the hand 
of the Lord Jehovah fell there upon me. — And he put 

favor of this verse, in the second century. In St. Jerome's Testa- 
ment this verse of St. John is found.* Augustine, of the same age, 
bears testimony to its authenticity. Cyrillus, in his commentary, 
uses it without any doubt of its authenticity. It appears strange, 
that ever there should have been any doubt of the authenticity of 
this portion of the sacred Scriptures. Nevertheless, some of the 
pious and learned of modern times, express doubts touching its gen- 
uineness; among others the venerable Dr. A. Clark says, " It is 
likely this verse is not genuine. It is wanting in every MSS. of this 
epistle written before the invention of printing, one excepted, the 
Codex Montf or Hi, in Trinity College, Dublin; the others which 
omit this verse amount to one hundred and twelve." Comment. 1 
John, v. 7,8. The Rev. J. Wesley says in his Notes on the JN"ew 
Testament on this verse, " WhatBengelius has advanced both con- 
cerning the transposition of these two verses, and the authority of 
the controverted verse, partly in his Gnomon and partly in his Ap- 
paratus Criticus, will abundantly satisfy any impartial person 
that there are three that testify, fyc. 

» Rev. E. Smith's View of the Trinity, 



54 TRINITY AND UNITY. 

forth the form of an hand and took me by a lock of mine 
head ; and the Spirit lifted me up between the earth and 
the heaven," &c. Ezek. viii. 1, 3. Therefore the 
Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit are the one 
Jehovah; these are three persons, of one nature. It is 
remarkable that the name Jehovah is not capable of 
equivocation as that of God ; it has no plural, and is not 
applicable to any created or derived being-, but is pecu- 
liar to the divine nature, and descriptive of it alone. 

3. The Trinity in unity is eternal, so taught in the 
holy Scriptures, "according to the commandment of the 
everlasting God." Rom, xvi. 26. Jesus Christ, who 
saith, "I am the first and the last." Rev. xxii. 13. " Who 
through the eternal Spirit," &c. Heb. ix. 14. Thus 
hath God revealed himself in his holy word. Again, 
says Christ, " I and my Father are one." John x. 30. 
The Holy Ghost, or Comforter, " who proceedeth from 
the Father." John xv. 26. The inference is, from the 
above, that the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost are three 
persons, and one God, Omnipotent, Omnipresent, Om- 
niscient, and eternally glorious. Hence, the Godhead 
of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost 
is one; the glory equal, the majesty co-eternal. " So the 
Father is God, the Son is God, and the Holy Ghost is 
God, and yet there are not three Gods, but one God." 
[Athanasian Creed.) " There is one divine nature of 
reason and science, common unto three persons, incom- 
prehensibly united, and ineffably] distinguished ; united 
in essential attributes, distinguished by peculiar idioms 



TRINITY AND UNITY 55 

and relations ; all equally infinite in every divine per- 
fection, each different from the other in order and man- 
ner of subsistence; that there is a mutual existence of 
one in all, and all in one; a communication without any 
deprivation or diminution in the communicant; an eter- 
nal generation, and an eternal procession without prece- 
dence or succession ; without proper causality or depen- 
dence, a Father imparting his own, and a Son receiving 
his Father's life, and a Spirit issuing from both, without 
any division or multiplication of essence. 

" These are notions which may well puzzle our reason 
in conceiving how they agree; but ought not to stagger 
our faith in assreting that they are true ; for the holy 
Scripture teaches us plainly, and frequently doth in- 
culcate upon us, that there is but one true God; if it 
manifestly doth ascribe to the three persons of the 
blessed Trinity, the same august names, the same pe- 
culiar characters, the same divine attributes, the same 
superlatively admirable operations of creation and prov- 
idence ; if it also doth prescribe to them the same 
supreme honors, services, praises, and acknowledg- 
ments to be paid to them all ; this may be abundantly 
enough to satisfy our minds, to stop our mouths, to 
smother all doubt and dispute about this high and holy 
mystery." (Dr. Barrow's Defence of the Trinity.)— 
I •'•The proof of the doctrine of the Trinity grounds itself 
Ion the firm foundation of the divine unity, and it closes 
I with it; and this may set the true believer at rest, when 
Ihe is assailed by the sophistical enemies of his faith 
[with the charge of dividing his regards, as he directs 



56 TRINITY AND UNITY. 

his prayers to one or other of the three persons of the 
Godhead. For the time at least, he is said to honor one 
to the exclusion of the others. The true Scriptural doc- 
trine of the unity of God, will remove this objection. — 
It is not the Socinian notion of unity. Theirs is the unity 
of one, ours the unity of three. We do not, however, 
as they seem to suppose, think the divine essence divisi- 
ble, and participated by, and shared among three per- 
sons ; but wholly and undividedly possessed and enjoyed. 
Whether, therefore, we address our prayers and adora- 
tions to the Father, Son, or Holy Ghost, we address the 
same adorable Being, the one living and true God. — 
" Jehovah, our Aleim, is one Jehovah." With refer- 
ence to the relations which each person bears to us in 
the redeeming- economy, our approaches to the Father 
are to be made through the mediation of the Son, and 
by, or with dependence upon, the assistance of the Holy 
Spirit. Yet, as the authority of the New Testament 
shows, this does not preclude direct prayer to Christ 
and to the Holy Spirit, and direct ascriptions of glory 
and honor to each. In all this we glorify the one ' God 
over all, blessed for evermore.' " (Rev. R. Watson's In- 
stitutes, part 2 of vol. 1, p. 415.) The reader will per- 
ceive, that our intention is not to mistake our own argu- 
ments on the one hand, nor misrepresent the opponents 
on the other ; but to gather the plain facts on the sub- 
ject, and present them to the mind of the reader in their 
native character. Touching the mode of three persons 
existing in one God, we know nothing, and possibly 



TRINITY AM) UNITY. 57 

never shall know. Nevertheless, from Genesis to the 
Revelation, by God himself this doctrine is plainly re- 
vealed. And why should the reader think this a thing 
incredible. Does he not find that the apostle Paul sets 
man forth in a three-fold sense. " And I pray God your 
whole spirit, and soul, and body, be preserved blameless 
unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ." 1 Thes. v. 
23. How the spirit, and soul, and body form one being, 
is beyond the reason of man, notwithstanding it is posi- 
tively revealed in Scripture. 



CHAPTER II. 

The Bible teaches the pre-existexce of Our 
Lord Jesus Christ. 



The pre-existence of Christ does not wholly establish 
the Godhead of Christ; hence it is not, therefore, full 
proof against the Arian hypothesis, but it is proof suffi- 
cient to destroy the Socinian idea that he was a man 
only. As no person in his right mind claims pre-exis- 
tence for the human soul, so we apply it to Christ alone, 
not to his soul, but to his supreme divinity. The pre- 
existence of Jesus Christ is clearly proven from the 
scriptures. Instance, "he was sent into the world; 3 ' 
John xvii. 18. " Forasmuch then as the children are 
partakers of flesh and blood, he also himself likewise 
took part of the same." Heb. ii. 14. "And the Word 
was made flesh, and dwelt among us." John i. 14. John 
the Baptist bare witness of the pre-existence of Christ as 
follows, "John bare witness of him, and cried, saying, 
this was he of whom I spake. He that cometh after 
me is preferred before me: for he w r as before me." John 
i. 15. It is well known that John the Baptist was six 
months older than the incarnation of Christ. 



PRE-EXISTENCE OF CHRIST. 59 

Socinian writers say, that the term, "preferred before 
me," must be taken in the sense of dignity, and not of 
time. But they should consider that the term EprtpoaSev 
is never in the Old or New Testaments used for dignity 
or rank, but refers either to place or time, hence their 
application of the text is foreign to their purpose. The 
phrase to be " sent from God," they maintain, is said of 
John the Baptist, hence of no use in proof of Christ's pre- 
existence. |C There was a man sent from God, whose 
name was John." " Hence if Christ was sent from 
God, so was John the Baptist; if the former came down 
from heaven, so did the latter." But this reasoning con- 
tradicts other scripture. Christ says, " Not that any man 
hath seen the Father, save he which is of God ; he hath 
seen the Father." John vi. 46. Christ applies this 
scripture to himself and none else. Therefore if Christ 
was that person, as it cannot be disputed ; John cannot 
be sent from God in the same way that Christ was sent. 
John gives testimony himself, " He that cometh from 
above is above all; he that is of the earth is earthly" 
John iii. 31. The former part of the above text he ap- 
plies to Christ, and the latter to himself. Christ, tt above 
ail" which he could not be if every other prophet came 
in like manner from heaven, hence if John was sent 
from God it cannot be in the same sense that Christ was 
sent from him, which destroys the objection. 

Again, says Jesus to the Jews, " your father Abraham 
rejoiced to see my day: and he saw it and was glad. 
Then said the Jews unto him, Thou art not yet fifty 



60 



PRE-EXISTEISCE OF CHRIST. 



years old, and hast thou seen Abraham? Jesus saith 
unto them, verily, verily I say unto you, before Abra- 
ham was, I am. Then took they up stones to cast at 
him : but Jesus hid himself, and went out of the temple, 
going through the midst of them, and so passed by." John 
viii. 56, 59. In the above passage, the verb upi, " I am," 
is equivalent to Jehovah, Exo. iii. 14. The sense is, 
"before Abraham was born, I was in existence." The 
Jews answer, " Thou art not yet fifty years old, and hast 
thou seen Abraham?" The Jews did not mistake his 
meaning, but were so enraged at so manifest a claim of 
Divinity, that u they took up stones to stone him," with- 
out judge or jury. Our Saviour says to the Jews, "your 
Father Abraham rejoiced to see my day; and he saw it, 
and was glad." Here Our Saviour presents himself to 
his Jewish brethren as their Messiah, whose day their 
Father Abraham rejoiced to see prospectively, or "having 
seen them afar off," Heb. xi. 13. The Blessed Jesus, 
" mounts up far beyond Abraham. He ascends beyond 
all the orders of creation. And he places himself with 
God, at the head of the universe. He thus claims to 
himself all that high pitch of dignity, which the Jews 
expected their Messiah to assume. He cries "verily, 
verily, I say unto you, before Abraham was, I am" He 
says not of himself, as he says of Abraham, "before 
he was, I was." This indeed would have been sufficient, 
to affirm his existence previous to Abraham. But it 
would not have been sufficient, to declare what he now 
meant to assert, his full claim to the majesty of the Mes- 



TRE-EXISTENCE OF CHRIST. 61 

siah. He therefore drops all forms of language, that 
could be accommodated to the mere creatures of God. He 
asserts one, that was appropriate to the Godhead itself. 
"Before Abraham was" or still more properly, "Before 
Abraham was made" he says "I am." He thus gives 
himself the signature of uncreated and continual exis- 
tence, in direct opposition to contingent and created. 
He attaches to himself that stamp of eternity, which 
God appropriates to his Godhead in the Old Testament ; 
and from which an apostle afterward describes Jesus 
Christ expressly, to be " the same yesterday, and to-day, 
and forever." Nor did the Jews pretend to misunder- 
stand him now. They could not. They heard him di- 
rectly and decisively vindicating the noblest rights of their 
Messiah, and the highest honors of their God, to him- 
self. They considered him as a mere pretender to those. 
" Then took they up stones, to cast at him," as a blasphe- 
mer, as what indeed he was in his pretensions to be God, 
if he had not been in reality their Messiah and their 
God in one. But he instantly proved himself to their 
very senses, to be both ; by exerting the energetic pow- 
ers of his God-head, upon them. For he 'hid himself; 
and went out of the temple, going through the midst of 
them; and so passed by.' " 

The above reasoning, we deem conclusive, which 
none can gainsay, or overthrow. If then we find that the 
titles and works which are given Christ in the New 
Testament, are ascribed to a Divine person in the Old, 
who is represented as distinct from God the Father, we 



62 PRE-EXISTENCE OF CHRIST. 

shall hereby gain another step, and obtain a valid proof, 
of the pre-existence of Our Lord Jesus Christ. But let 
us follow up this point, a little farther. It is said in 
John, i. 1. "In the beginning was the Word, (Logos,) 
and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." 
This Word or Logos, was with God and was God, w T ho 
existed in the " beginning;" he was not the beginning, 
but existed before the beginning, in the glory which he 
had with the Father, " before the world was." John xvii. 
5. And if he thus existed before the beginning, he must 
necessarily be eternal. Who said to the Father and the 
Spirit, " Come let us make man," &c. This agrees with 
what is said in John i. 3. "All things were made by 
him; and without him was not anything made that was 
made." The heavens, the earth, and man were made, 
but without Jesus Christ, they were not made. There- 
fore, if he made all things he must necessarily have been 
before all things, possessing infinite wisdom to construct, 
and infinite power to create all things. But more than 
this, the apostle Paul in speaking of him, Col. i. 17. says: 
"And he is before all things, and by him all things con- 
sist," or are preserved; but the same Apostle says in the 
same chapter, verse 16 : " all things were created by him 
and for him." Therefore, Christ made all things for 
himself and not for another: then if he made all things 
for himself, he surely could not have been a delegated 
being to create and preserve for God, as some affirm. 
The conclusion is inevitable, that Jesus Christ had a 
pre-existence before he was born of the Virgin Mary. 



CHAPTER III 

The Divinity of Jesus Christ is proven by the 
names of Jehovah, &c, in the Scriptures being 
applied to him. 

All, we suppose, will agree, that that Person, called 
the "Angel of the Lord," and Jehovah, "I am that I 
am, the judge of all the earth," &c, in the Scriptures of 
the Old Testament, was a divine person, or the Supreme 
God. If Arians, or Unitarians, would dare to cavil 
about any of these appellations, we suppose it would 
be the first quotation, the " Angel of the Lord." But 
we shall prove that the term Angel, is a name of the 
eternal Jehovah. When the Angel of the Lord found 
Hagar in the wilderness, "she called him Jehovah, 
that spake unto her; Thou God seest me." Jacob 
wrestled with the Angel at Peniel, or with the Man. — 
This angel of Hagar and man of Jacob, is no less than 
the Jehovah of the universe; this is fully proven by the 
prophet Hosea. "Yea, he (Jacob) had power over the 
angel, and prevailed ; he wept, and made supplication 
unto him ; he found him in Bethel, and there he spake 
with us. Even the Lord God of hosts ; the Lord is his 
memorial." Chap. xii. 4. 5. 



64 NAMES OF THE SAVIOUR. 

Again, the " Angel of the Lord" appeared to Moses 
in a flame of fire ; but this same Angel of the Lord 
called to him out of the bush, and said, " I am the God 
of thy father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, 
and the God of Jacob, and Moses hid his face, for he 
was afraid to look upon God." Exo. iii. 6. The plain 
and obvious meaning of this text is, that the angel is the 
name of God himself God said to Moses and the Isra- 
elites, " Behold I send an angel before thee to keep thee 
in the way, and to bring thee into the place which I have 
prepared ; beware of him, and obey his voice, provoke 
him not ; for he will not pardon your transgressions, for 
my name is in him." Exo. xxiii. 20, 21. This Angel 
was to give them the promised land. 2. He was the 
object of their fear, "beware of him. 11 3. He was to 
pardon their "transgressions." And who can pardon 
sin, but God only ? 

Finally. He should possess the name of God Jeho- 
vah, I am. No created being could possibly possess the 
functions of this Angel, our enemies themselves being 
judges. Both parties agree, that God hates idolatry; — 
and hence He could not recommend idolatry. This 
is obvious from Exo. xxxii. 7, 8: "And the Lord 
said unto Moses, Go, get thee dow^n; for thy people, 
which thou broughtest out of the land of Egypt, have 
corrupted themselves — have made them a molten calf, 
and have worshipped it." Again, "I am the Lord thy 
God, which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt, 
out of the house of bondage. Thou shalt have no other 



NAMES OF THE SAVIOUR. 65 

Gods before mc.' : Exo. xx. 2, 3. After all these plain 
and convincing Scriptures, which prove so plainly that 
the term Angel is an appellation of Deity, — yet, some 
artful Arians try to make it appear, that the term Angel 
was only a created being appearing in the name or per- 
son of the Father. But this assertion wants proof.* 

Dr. Priestly "assumes the marvellous doctrine" of 
-occasional personality," thinks "in some cases angels 
were nothing more than temporary appearances, and no 
permanent beings ; the mere organs of the Deity, as- 
sumed for the purpose of making himself known, a 
power occasionally emitted, and then taken back again 
into its source." Well may the Rev. R. Watson say of 
him, " The doctor, and his adherents, had little cause to 
talk of the mystery and absurdity of the doctrine of three 
persons in one Godhead, who can make a person out of 
a power, emitted and then drawn back again to its source; 
a temporary person, without individual subsistence." — 
The truth of the matter is, this Angel of Jehovah, as in 
the Scripture of the Old Testament, thus manifesting him- 
self, and receiving divine worship, was not a created an- 
gel as the Arians say, nor a meteor, an atmospheric ap~ 



* " An earthly ambassador indeed represents the person of his 
prince, is supposed to be clothed with his authority, and speaks and 
acts in his name. But who ever heard of an ambassador assuming 
the very name of his sovereign, or being honored with it by others? 
Would one in this character be permitted to say, I George, I Louis, 
I Frederic. As the idea is ridiculous, the action would justly be 
accounted high treason." (Jamieson's Vindication, Watson's Lists.) 



66 NAMES of the saviour. 

pearance, according to the theory of Socinians, but a 

DIVIDE PERSON. 

2. This divine person is not God the Father, but the 
Lord Jesus Christ. This is said to be proved from the 
following Scriptures : " No man hath seen God at any 
time." John i. 18, and 1 John iv. 12. "Who only hath 
immortality, dwelling in the light which no man can 
approach unto ; whom no man hath seen nor can see. 
1 Tim. vi. 16. "Ye have neither heard his voice at 
any time, nor seen his shape." " Not that any man 
hath seen the Father." It is, however, certified in the 
Old Testament, that God frequently appeared in the Pa- 
triarchal and Levitical dispensations, therefore we must 
conclude, that the God that appeared was God the Son. 

This argument, though plausible, is not exactly con- 
clusive, though it may be admitted in the general, yet 
there are exceptions. Instance, u We have seen that 
the Angel, in whom was the name of God, promised as 
the conductor of the Israelites through the wilderness, 
was a divine person; but he who promised to "send 
him" must be a different person from the Angel sent, 
and that person could be no other than the Father. 

"Behold, I send an angel before thee," &c. On this 
occasion, therefore, Moses heard the voice of the Father. 
Again, at the baptism of Jesus the voice of the Father 
was heard, declaring, " This is my beloved Son, in whom 
I am well pleased." The above passages must be, 
therefore, interpreted to accord with these facts, that is, 
" No man hath seen God at any time, — No man can see 



NAMES OF THE SAVIOUR. 67 

my face and live." They express the pure spirituality 
of God by audible sounds and appearances. "There was 
an important sense in which Moses neither did nor could 
see God; and yet it is equally true, that he both saw 
and heard him. He saw the " back parts" but not the 
« face of God." Exo. xxxiii. 20, 23. " The manifesta- 
tion of the Father was, however, very rare." Nearly 
all the divine appearances were of the Angel of the 
Lord. The Jehovah was an Angel who appeared to 
Abraham at Sodom. The Jehovah who appeared to 
Hagar was " the Angel of the Lord" The Angel of 
Jehovah from heaven sware by himself to Abraham. — 
Jacob calls the God of Bethel the Angel of God. He 
who took up his residence over the Ark, and received 
the homage of the Jews, is called the Angel of the Lord. 
And so in many other places of the Old Testament Scrip- 
tures. The impartial reader will perceive, that there 
is no necessity to try to press the audible agency, or visi- 
ble appearance of the Father from the Old Testament. 
It should be our object to prove, not that the Father was 
not manifested in his own person, but that the Angel of 
the Lord is not the Father." The term Angel is either 
descriptive of nature or office. In its general application, 
it is applied to those superior intelligences in heaven, 
employed in administering to man, but finite and crea- 
ted. It is obvious from what we have said, that the 
Angel of the Lord is not a created being, and he is not 
therefore called an angel in reference to his nature. — 
The appellation, Angel, must be a term of office ; An- 



68 3VAMES OF THE SAVIOUR. 

gel, or messenger of the Father, hence distinct from the 
Father, which shows from the Scriptures two divine 
persons. 

3. This Angel of Jehovah of the Old Testament, is 
the Lord Jesus Christ of the New Testament. 

The Angel of Jehovah gave the law to the Israelites. 
In doing so, he is the angel, or messenger, in the matter. 
This is obvious from Jeremiah xxxi. 31, 32, "Behold, 
the days come, saith the Lord, that I will make a new 
covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house of 
Judah : not according to the covenant that I made with 
their Fathers, in the day that I took them by the hand, 
to bring them out of the land of Egypt ; which my cov- 
enant they brake." It is plain, then, that the Angel of 
Jehovah, who gave the old covenant, is the giver of the 
new covenant. 

The apostle Paul, speaking of this covenant, and quo- 
ting the words of Jeremiah, in the eighth chapter of He- 
brews, plainly sets forth Jesus Christ as the author of 
the new covenant, or testament, another name for cove- 
nant: for in speaking of "the first covenant," chap. ix. 1, 
he calls it in verse 18, "the first testament." So this 
new covenant predicted by Jeremiah, is the New Testa- 
ment dispensation, having Jesus Christ for its author ; 
then the Christ of the New Testament, is the Angel of 
Jehovah of the Old, and the same person, as the Scrip- 
tures fully certify. 

The last Jewish prophet establishes the same point 
beyond successful contradiction. "Behold, I will send 



\ames or Tin: saviour. 89 

my messenger, and he shall prepare the way before me: 
and the Lord whom ye seek, shall suddenly come to his 
temple, even the messenger of the covenant, whom ye 
delight in; behold, he shall come, saith the Lord of 
hosts." Mai. iii. I. The temple at Jerusalem was God's 
house, or the temple of the messenger, Jesus Christ, 
Jehovah's messenger, or servant, — one sent, and implies 
a person sending, and one sent, two different persons. 
" The same person, therefore, is servant and Lord ; and 
by uniting these characters in the same person, what 
does the prophet but describe that great mystery of the 
gospel, the union of the nature which governs, and the 
nature which serves, — the union of the divine and hu- 
man natures in the person of Christ." # 

The Angel of Jehovah was the King of the Jews, 
who resided in the temple, called " the house of the 
Lord;" the same who resided in the Jewish tabernacle, 
Jesus, in the days of his incarnation, ratifies the prophe- 
sies of the Old Testament Scriptures, when he went forth 
into the temple at Jerusalem, amid shouts of triumph 
attended with kingly pomp. They strewed the way 
with green branches of trees, and spread their clothes in 
the way, " and cried hosanna ! Blessed is the King of 
Israel, that cometh in the name of the Lord." Johnxii. 
13. St. Luke says, "He went into the temple, and be- 
gan to cast out them that sold therein, and them that 
bought ; saying unto them, it is written, My house is the 

* Horsley's Sermons. 



70 NAMES OF THE SAVIOUR. 

house of prayer: but ye have made it a den of thieves." 
Chap. xix. 45, 46. Here Christ calls the temple his 
house, according to Isaiah lvi. 7. 

From the above, and many other parts of Scripture, 
it is plainly proven, that the messenger of the covenant 
is the testator of abetter covenant. See St. Mark i. 1, 2, 
3. The voice here crying in the wilderness, was John 
the Baptist. The burden of the cry was, " Prepare ye 
the way of the Lord, (Jehovah,) make his paths straight." 
Verse 3. This answers to the prediction of Isaiah, 
chapter xl. 3, and the application made expressly by the 
Baptist to our Lord, that He is the person to whom the 
prophet attributes the incommunicable name of Jehovah, 
and styles him a our God." But another prediction of 
Isaiah is with equal force applied to our Lord: "There- 
fore the Lord himself shall give you a sign, Behold, a 
virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his 
name Immanuel," chap. vii. 14, which, as St. Matthew 
says, being interpreted, is, God with us. Chap. i. 23. 

Again, says Isaiah, in chapter ix. 6, 7, "For unto us 
a child is bom, unto us a son is given : and the govern- 
ment shall be upon his shoulder ; and his name shall be 
called Wonderful, Counsellor, the Mighty God, the 
Everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace," &c. 

It is unnecessary at present to quote more of those 
numerous passages which speak of the future Messiah un- 
der divine titles, and which are applied to Jesus as that 
Messiah actually manifested. They do not in so many 
words, connect the Angel of Jehovah with Jesus as the 



NAMES OF THE SAVIOUR. 71 

same person ; but, taken with the passages above adduced, 
they present evidence of a very weighty character in fa- 
vor of that position. 

A plurality of persons in the one Godhead is men- 
tioned in the Jewish Scriptures; this plurality is restrict- 
ed to three ; one of them appears as the "acting God" 
of the patriarchal and Mosaic age ; the prophets speak 
of a divine person to come as the Messiah bearing pre- 
cisely the same titles. No one supposes this to be the 
Holy Ghost ; it cannot be the Father, seeing that Mes- 
siah is God's servant and God's messenger ; and the only 
conclusion is, that the Messiah predicted is he who is 
known under the titles of Angel, Son, and Jehovah, &c, 
in the Old Testament, and Jesus is that Messiah, he is 
that Son, that Word, that Servant, that Messenger ; and 
bearing the same divine characters as the Angel of Je- 
hovah, is that Angel himself, and is entitled in the Chris- 
tian Church to all the homage and worship which was 
paid to him in the Jewish. 

There are, however, a few passages which in a still 
more distinct manner than any which have been intro- 
duced, except that from the prophecy of Jeremiah, that 
identify Jesus Christ with the Angel of Jehovah in the 
patriarchal and Levitical dispensations ; and a brief con- 
sideration of them will leave this important point estab- 
lished. Let it then be recollected, that he who dwelt in 
the Jewish tabernacle, between the cherubim, was the 
Angel of Jehovah. In Psalm lxviii. which was written 
on the removal of the Ark to Mount Zion, he is express- 



72 NAMES OF THE SAVIOUR. 

ly addressed^ " This is the hill which God desireth to 
dwell in;" and again, " They have seen thy goings, O 
God, my King, in thy sanctuary." But the apostle 
Paul, Eph. iv. 8, applies this psalm to Christ, and con- 
siders this very ascent of the Angel Jehovah to Mount 
Zion as a prophetic type of the ascent of Jesus to the 
celestial Zion, — " Wherefore he saith, when he ascend- 
ed up on high, he led captivity captive," &c. The con- 
clusion, therefore, is, that the Angel Jehovah, who is ad- 
dressed in the psalm, and Christ, are the same person. 
This is marked with equal strength in verse 29. The 
psalm, let it be observed, is determined by apostolical au- 
thority to be a prophecy of Christ, as indeed its terms 
intimate; and with reference to the future conquests of 
the Messiah, the prophet exclaims, " Because of thy 
temple at Jerusalem shall kings bring presents unto 
thee." The future Christ is spoken of as one having 
then a temple at Jerusalem. 

The fact should be admitted, that the Jehovah of the 
Israelites was Christ, whose name and worship Moses 
professed : this is too plain to be doubted. For, in the 
eleventh chapter of the Hebrews, Moses is said to have 
esteemed the reproach of Christ greater riches than the 
treasures of Egypt. Moreover, St. Paul says in his first 
Epistle to the Corinthians, " Neither let us tempt Christ 
as some of them also tempted, and were destroyed of 
serpents." Chap, x, 9. It is therefore proven, that the 
Angel Jehovah and Jesus Christ our Lord, are the same 
person, and hereby his divinity is established. 



\ \mi:s QF THl 8 wiouj. 73 

4. The title of God is applied to our Saviour. This 
the adversaries oi' Jus divinity admit, and this concession 
shows that the letter of the Scriptures is favorable to the 
orthodox opinion. All must allow it is a term in the 
Scriptures expressive of the divine character. The op- 
posers of the supreme divinity of Christ say, that the 
term God is applied to Christ in an inferior sense. If all 
admit that in its highest sense, it involves the idea of ab- 
solute divinity, denoting a Being eternal, infinite, and ab- 
solutely perfect. The Being thus expressed by the 
Psalmist, " Before the mountains were brought forth, or 
ever thou hadst formed the earth and the world, even 
from everlasting to everlasting, thou art God.' 5 Psa. 
xc. 2. This establishes the term in its highest sense. 

Again, " Now all this was done, that it might be ful- 
filled which was spoken of the Lord by the prophet, say- 
ing, Behold, a virgin shall be with child, and shall bring 
forth a son. and they shall call his name Emmanuel, 
which being interpreted, is God with us." He is direct- 
ly called God. " In the beginning was the Word, and 
the Word was w T ith God, and the Word was God." — 
John i. 1. Were the Scriptures allowed to speak their 
own language, this single passage would decide the con- 
troversy. Again, " Of whom, as concerning the flesh, 
Christ came, who is over all, God blessed for ever." — 
Rom. ix. 5. 

But Socinians say, that the term God was applied to 
Moses. " See, I have made thee a God to Pharaoh." — 
Exo. vii. 1. This is explained by chapter iv. 16: "Thou 
7 



74 NAMES OF THE SAVIOUR. 

shalt be to him instead of God." These passages ap- 
pear to be applied in a figurative as well as in a loicer 
sense, and inapplicable to the Deity. 

But the Saviour is termed by the prophet Isaiah, "the 
Mighty God." Isa. ix. 6. # He is also emphatically 
called Immanuel, or El, that is God, and is really Im- 
manu, that is with us. No inferior Deity, but " the 
Mighty God." This answers to what Thomas says of 
Christ : " And Thomas answered and said unto him, my 
Lord and my God." John xx. 28. Again, " Looking 
for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the 
great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ." Titus ii. 13. 
Our Lord is not only called God, but the great God, 
which gives us indubitable evidence of his divinity. An- 
other passage in which Christ receives the appellation 
God in the highest sense, is Heb. i. 8 : u But unto the 
Son he saith, Thy throne, O God, is forever and ever." 
"And we know that the Son of God is come, and hath 
given us an understanding that we may know him that 
is true, and w T e are in him that is true, even in his Son 
Jesus Christ. This is the true God and eternal 
life." 1 John v. 20. Socinians interpret the clause, 
"him that is true," of the Father, and refer the pronoun 

* " He is called God. The Hebrew word El, in the singular 
number, in Isaiah ix. 7, which is applied to Christ, and there ren- 
dered God, is never used of any created being. It is peculiar to 
Almighty God, as will be evident to every one who will be at the 
pains to examine all the texts in the Hebrew Bible, where it oc- 
curs." Dr. C. Elliott. 



N LMES OF 'in H S WIOUK. (D 

tkis not to the nearest antecedent u his Son Jesus Christ," 
but to the most remote, " him that is true." As the Rev. 
R. Watson says, " Yet even this feeble opposition to the 
received rendering cannot be maintained: for, 1. To in- 
terpret the clause, 'him that is true,' of the Father, is en. 
tirely arbitrary : and the scope of the epistle, which was 
to prove that Jesus the Christ was the true Son of God, 
and, therefore, Divine, against those who denied his di- 
vinity, and that 'he had come in the flesh,' in opposition 
to the heretics who denied his humanity, obliges us to 
refer that phrase to the Son, and not to the Father. 2. 
If it could be established that the Father was intended 
by 'him that is true,' it would be contrary to grammati- 
cal usage to refer the pronoun this is the 'true God and 
eternal life,' to the remote antecedent, without obvious 
and indisputable necessity." * 

But, again; the apostle says of the Saviour, "Whose 
are the fathers, and of whom, as concerning the flesh, 
Christ came, who is over all, God blessed for ever." — 



* ''These were the Docets, who taught that our Lord was a man 
in appearance only, and suffered and died in appearance only. On 
the contrary, the Cerinihians and others believed that the Son of 
God was united to the human nature at his baptism, departed from 
it before his passion, and was re-united to it after his resurrection. 
According- to the former, Christ was man in appearance only; ac- 
cording to the latter, he was the Son of God at the time of his pas- 
sion and death in appearance only. We see, then, the reason that 
St. John who writes against these errors, so often calls Christ 
* him that is true,' true God and true man, not either in appearance 
on)y." Watson's Theo. Inst. vol. 1, p. 523. 



76 NAMES OF THE SAVIOUR. 

Rom. ix. 5. The apostle enumerates the privileges of 
the Jewish nation, " whose are the fathers," the patri- 
archs and prophets, of whom Christ came. But this 
very Christ is " God blessed for ever. 11 " The word 
God in this text, is found in every known manuscript of 
this epistle, in every ancient version extant, and in every 
Father who has had occasion to quote the passage ; so 
that, in truth, there can scarcely be instanced a text in 
the New Testament in which all the ancient authorities 
more satisfactorily agree." (Magee on the Atonement.) 

5. I will hasten over titles given to the Saviour, such 
as the " Lord of Glory," 1 Cor. ii. 8, " King of Kings 
and Lord of Lords," "Kin© of Israel," &c, and 
contemplate as briefly as possible, one title particularly 
given to the Saviour in the Scriptures, that is the " Son 
of God." That this title was applied to Christ, before 
and after his resurrection by his disciples, is an indisputa- 
ble fact : and he assumes it himself, and it was indignant- 
ly denied him by the Jews. 

Then let us examine what this title means, if it be 
applied to his humanity only, as some affirm, or to his 
divinity as the Scriptures signify. 

hi proof of the latter signification, we have the fol- 
lowing reasons: 1. Our Lord calls God his Father, 
and grounds the proof of it upon his miracles. The 
Jews, too, clearly conceived, that in making this profes- 
sion of Sonship with reference to God, he assumed a 
divine character, and made himself " equal with God." 
They therefore took up stones to stone him. In that im- 



NAMES OF THE SAVIOUR. 77 

portant argument between our Lord and the Jews, in 
which his great object was to establish the point, that, in 
a peculiar sense, God was his Father, there is no refer- 
ence at all to the miraculous conception. On the con- 
trary, the title " Son of God," is assumed by Christ on a 
ground totally different; and it is disputed by the Jews, 
not by their questioning or denying the fact that he 
was miraculously conceived, but on the assumed impos- 
sibility that he, being a man, should be equal to God, 
which they affirmed that title to import. Nor did the 
disciples themselves give him this title with reference to 
his conception by the Holy Ghost. Certain it is, that 
Nathanael did not know the circumstances of his birth ; 
for he was announced to him by Philip as Jesus of Naz- 
areth, the " son of Joseph ;" and he asks, " Can any good 
thing come out of Nazareth % " He did not know, there- 
fore, but that Jesus was the son of Joseph ; he knew 
nothing of his being born at Bethlehem, and yet he con- 
fesses him to be u the Son of God, and the King of Is- 
rael." * 

In the confession of St. Peter, he says of the Saviour, 
" Thou art Christ, the Son of the Living God." In 
this he had no reference to his miraculous conception ; 
" probably not known even to the apostles, and one of 
the things which Mary kept and pondered in her heart, 
till the Spirit fully revealed Christ to the apostles." — 
But even if the miraculous conception was known to 

* Institutes, vol. 1, p. 529. 



78 NAMES OF THE SAVIOUR. 

Peter, it formed no part of the ground on which he con- 
fessed the "Son of man" to be the "Son of God ;" for 
the Saviour answers him, " Blessed art thou, Simon Bar- 
jona, for flesh and blood hath not revealed this unto thee, 
but my Father which is in heaven." That Peter had 
been specially taught this doctrine of the Sonship of 
Christ by God, appears an unnecessary thing, certainly, 
if the miraculous conception had been the only ground 
of that Sonship, for this fact might have been received 
from the " Virgin Mother " without any express revela- 
tion from the Father. 

But, if it be argued that the " Son of God" is but an- 
other name for Messiah, and was so used among the 
Jews ; or, in other words, it is only an official designa- 
tion, and not a personal term. This cannot well appear, 
as the term Messiah can only apply to the Messiahship, 
or office of the Saviour: and Son applies to the relation 
of character. 1. " The Jews recognized the existence 
of such a being as the l Son of God ;' and that for any 
person to profess to be the Son of God, in this peculiar 
sense, was to commit blasphemy. 2. That for a person 
to profess to be the Messiah simply was not considered 
blasphemy, and did not exasperate the Jews to take up 
stones to stone the offender." Our Lord professed to be 
the Messiah, and many of the Jews believed on him as 
such, and it may be some even of those very persons that 
believed on the Saviour as the Messiah took up stones to 
stone him as a blasphemer when he declared himself the 
"Son of God." 



R DIES OF Tin: s\\ ioik. 79 

The Saviour is called the "Son" of God in the sec- 
ond PSalm, ~t \ '-Tin' Lord hath said imlo me. Thou art 
my Son: this day have I begotten thee." Apostolic 
authority vouches that the "Son" introduced here as 
speaking, is Christ; and if we think with some that 
-this day" is the day of Christ's resurrection, u and 
should interpret his being- ; begotten' of the Father of 
the act itself of raising him from the dead, it is clear 
that the miraculous conception of Christ is not in this 
passage laid down as the ground of his Sonship. * * 
But he is often called the Son where there is no refer- 
ence even to his resurrection." We perceive from the 
above psalm, that the mind of the inspired writer is filled 
with ideas of the divinity of his claims and works. This 
Son whom the nations of the earth are called to kiss, 
lest he be angry, and they perish from the way, &c. 

The truth of the matter is, that neither the miraculous 
conception nor the resurrection of Christ from the dead, 
is the foundation of his being called the Son of God in 
this Psalm. " Not the first, for there is no allusion to it; 
not the second, for he was declared from heaven to be 
the ' beloved Son' of the Father, at his very entrance 
upon his ministry, and consequently, before the resur- 
rection ; and also, because the very apostle who applies 
the prediction to the resurrection of Christ, explicitly 
states that even that w T as a declaration of an antecedent 
Sonship. It is also to be noted, that in the first chapter 
of the Epistle to the Hebrews, St. Paul institutes an ar- 
gument upon this very passage in the second Psalm, to 



80 



NAMES OF THE SAVIOUR. 



prove the superiority of Christ to the angels. " For 
unto which of the angels said he any time, Thou art 
my Son, this day have I begotten thee."* "The force of 
this argument lies in the expression 'begotten,' importing 
that the person addressed is the Son of God, not by crea- 
tion, but by generation. Christ's pre-eminence over the 
angels is here stated to consist in this, that whereas 
they were created, he is begotten; and the apostle's rea- 
soning is fallacious, unless this expression intimates a pro- 
per and peculiar filiation."! 

The relation of Father and Son in the Godhead was 
not unrevealed to the Jews, and consequently, this ac- 
counts for the ideas of divinity which they in the days of 
Christ, connected with the term " Son of God." Says Mr. 
R. Watson, "This relation is most unequivocally ex- 
pressed in the prophecy of Micah, chap. v. 2. ' But thou, 
Bethlehem Ephratah, though thou be little among the 
thousands of Judah, yet out of thee shall he come forth 
unto me that is to be ruler in Israel ; whose goings forth 
have been from of old, from everlasting ;' or, as it is in 
the margin, 'from the days of eternity.' " 

Here the person spoken of is said to have had a two- 
fold birth, or "going forth." 

By a natural birth he came forth from Bethlehem to 
Judah; by another and a higher, he was from the days 
of eternity. One is opposed to the other ; but the last is 



* Watson's Inst. vol. 1, p. 532. 

t Holden's Testimonies— Inst. vol. 1, 533. 



NAMES OF THE SAVIOUR. 81 

carried into eternity itself by words which must clearly 
intimate an existence prior to the birth in Bethlehem, and 
that an eternal one: while the term used and translated 
his u goings forth," conveys precisely the same idea as 
"the eternal generation of the Son of God." Thus says 
Dr. Pocock, " This passage carefully distinguishes his 
human nature from his eternal generation. The prophet 
describes him who was to ' come out of Bethlehem' by 
another more eminent coming or going forth, even from 
all eternity. This is so signal a description of the di- 
vine generation, before all time, or of that going forth 
from everlasting of Christ, the eternal Son of God ; c God 
of the substance of the Father, begotten before the 
worlds;' who was afterward in time made man, and 
born into the world in Bethlehem, that the prophecy 
evidently belongs to him, and could never be verified of 
any other." 

" This prophecy of Micah is, perhaps, the most impor- 
tant single prophecy in the Old Testament, and the most 
comprehensive respecting the personal character of the 
Messiah, and his successive manifestation to the world. 
It crowns the whole chain of prophecies descriptive of 
the several limitations of the blessed Seed of the woman, 
to the line of Shem, to the family of Abraham, Isaac 
and Jacob, to the tribe of Judah, and to the royal house 
of David, here terminating in his birth at Bethlehem, 
1 the city of David.' It carefully distinguishes his human 
nativity from his eternal generation ; foretells the rejec- 
tion of the Israelites and Jews for a season, their final 
8 



82 NAMES OF THE SAVIOUR. 

restoration." &c. (Hales's Analysis.) " The same re- 
lation of Son, in the full view of supreme divinity, and 
where no other reference appears to be had to the office 
and future work of Messiah, is found in Proverbs xxx. 
4, Who hath ascended up into heaven or descended? Who 
hath gathered the wind in his fists? Who hath bound 
the waters in a garment? Who hath established all the 
ends of the earth? What is his name, and what is his 
Son's name, if thou canst tell?" Here the Deity is con- 
templated, not in his redeeming acts, in any respect or 
degree; not as providing for the recovery of a lost race, 
or that of the Jewish people, by the gift of his Son : he 
is placed before the reverend gaze of the prophet in his 
acts of creative and conserving power only, managing 
at will and ruling the operations of nature; and yet, even 
in these peculiar offices of divinity alone, he is spoken 
of as having a Son, whose ' name 1 that is, according to 
the Hebrew idiom, whose nature, is as deep, mysterious 
and unutterable as his own, "what is his name, and 
what is his Son's name, canst thou tell?" 

" The phrase ' Son of God' was, therefore, known to 
the ancient Jews, and to them conveyed a very definite 
idea ; and it is no answer to this to say, that it was a 
common appellative of Messiah among their ancient wri- 
ters. The question is, how came ' Son of God' to be an 
appellative of Messiah. ' Messiah' is an official title; 
'Son,' a personal one. It is granted the Messiah is the 
Son of God ; but it is denied that therefore, the term Son 
of God ceases to be a personal description, and that it 



NAMES OF THE SAVIOUR. 83 

imports the same with Messiah. David was the ' Son 
of Jesse,' and the 'king of Israel;' he therefore who was 
king- of Israel was the son of Jesse; but the latter is the 
personal, the former only the official description; and it 
cannot be argued that the l son of Jesse' conveys no idea 
distinct from c king of Israel.' On the contrary, it marks 
his origin and his family ; for, before he was king of 
Israel, he was the son of Jesse. In like manner, ' Son 
of God' marks the natural relation of Messiah to God ; 
and the term Messiah his official relation to men. The 
personal title cannot otherwise be explained ; and as we 
have seen that it was used personally, and not officially, 
and, also, without any reference to the miraculous con- 
ception at all, as before proved, it follows, that it express- 
es a natural relation to God, subsisting not in the human 
but in the higher nature of Messiah ; and, this higher 
nature being proved to be divine, it follows, that the 
term Son of God, as applied to Jesus, is therefore a title 
of absolute divinity, importing his participation in the 
very nature and essence of God. The same ideas of di- 
vine Sonship are suggested by almost every passage in 
which the phrase occurs in the New Testament."* 

" When Jesus was baptized, he went up straightway 
out of the water ; and lo, the heavens w r ere opened unto 
him, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a 
dove, and lighting upon him ; and lo, a voice from hea- 
ven, This is my Beloved Son, in whom I am well 
pleased." Mat. iii. 16, 17. 

* Watson's Theo. Inst. vol. 1, p. 539. 



84 NAMES OF THE SAVIOUR. 

None will say that this passage applies to his resur- 
rection, nor as a plaudit for the manner in which he 
discharged the office of Messiah, for he was only about 
to commence it; if it was not given him with reference 
to his miraculous conception, it must follow it was 
given on grounds independent of his office, and indepen- 
dent of the circumstances of his birth, and that for a 
higher reason than either his official, or his human birth, 
he was the "Son of God." John the Baptist when he 
heard this, exclaims, " And I saw, and bare record, that 
this is the Son of God," John i. 34. The Son of God 
and Messiah also as has been shown. It was to the 
Jews that he bore this record, who knew well the appli- 
cation of the term. The Baptist says in John iii. 35, 
" The Father loveth the Son and hath given all things 
into his hand." That is, because he is his Son, all power 
and all offices : not his Son because of the office, but 
the office because he was the Son of God. The Jews 
were enraged against him, " sought the more to kill him, 
because he not only had broken the Sabbath, but said 
also, that God was his Father, making himself equal 
with God." John v. 18. The Saviour here does not re- 
prove the Jews for attaching such meaning to the term 
Son of God, or, making God his Father, but confirms 
it by saying that whatsoever thing the Father doeth 
"these also doeth the Son likewise," verse 19. The 
epithet " only begotten" as is found in John i. 14, and 
in other places in the New Testament affords farther 
proof of the divine Sonship. " If" says Mr. Watson, 



NAMES OF THE SAVIOUR. 85 

u the epithet only begotten, referred to Christ's miracu- 
lous conception, then the glory of the < only begotten' 
refers to, and must be the glory of the human nature of 
Christ only, for that alone was capable of being con- 
ceived. This is, however, clearly contrary to the scope 
of the passage, which does not speak of the glory of the 
nature, 'the flesh,' which 'the Word' assumed, but of the 
glory of the Word himself, who is here said to be the 
only begotten of the Father. It is therefore the glory of 
the divine nature which is here intended." The title 
povoysvris, only begotten or only Son, this cannot be rea- 
sonably applied to the miraculous conception of Christ 
or his Messiahship, or his being the first begotten from 
the dead, or as being appointed heir of all things, but to 
his pre-existence and divine nature. Where the term 
only is applied to angels or men, it is in an accommoda- 
ted sense. Isaac is termed the only son of Abraham. 
In Luke it is used, chap. vii. 12, "Behold there was a 
dead man carried out, the only son of his mother." And 
where it is said the " one only daughter." Luke viii. 42, 
and in chap. ix. 38, where it is " Master, look upon my 
son, for he is my only child" fyc. If it be said, that be- 
cause the Saviour was by the Holy Ghost, made in a 
peculiar sense, he is the Son of God only. But were 
not angels in as high a sense the sons of God? and Adam 
directly made by God, and in this sense the son of God? 
and while the first man Adam stood alone in creation, 
who would have denied him the epithet of God's only 
son, thereby excluding Christ from the relation of only 



86 NAMES OF THE SAVIOUR. 

Son, if it only applies to his human nature, but the epi- 
thet of only Son can only be applied to the divine nature 
of our Lord, in which he is emphatically the "Son of 
the living God." 

The answer of the Saviour at his trial to the direct 
question of the Jewish council. — " Then said they all, 
art thou the Son of God? and he saith unto them, ye say 
that I am," or I am that ye say, Luke xxii. 70, thus de- 
claring that, in the very sense in which they put the 
question, he was the Son of God. In confessing himself 
to be, in that sense, the Son of God, he did more than 
claim to be the Messiah, for the council judged him for 
that reason guilty of "blasphemy;" a charge which 
could not lie against any one, by the Jewish law, for 
professing to be the Messiah. It was in their judgment 
a cause of blasphemy explicitly proved against him by 
their laiv, which inflicted death upon the offence; but in 
the whole Mosaic institute, it is not a capital crime to 
assume the title and character of Messiah. Why then 
did the confession of Christ, that he was the u Son of 
God," in answer to the interrogative of the council, lead 
them to exclaim, " What need we any farther witness? 
for we ourselves have heard of his own mouth — he is 
worthy of death. We have a law, and by our law he 
ought to die." The reason is given, because he made 
himself the " Son of God." 

In the following passage, his divine and human 
natures are placed in opposition and contradistinction to 
each other. Rom. i. 3, 4, " Concerning his Son Jesus 



NAMES OF THE SAVIOUR. 87 

Christ our Lord, which was made of the seed of David 
according to the flesh ; and declared to be the Son of 
God with power according" to the spirit of holiness, by 
the resurrection from the dead." It appears very plain 
that the divine nature of Christ is put in opposition to 
his human nature, the latter is reckoned the " seed of 
David," the former, the (i So?i of God" according to the 
M spirit of holiness." 

Again, God says to Christ, " Thou art my Son, this 
day have I begotten thee." And again, " I will be to him 
a Father, and he shall be to me a Son." Christ is be- 
gotten, not created, u For unto which of the angels said 
he at any time, Thou art my Son, this day have] I be- 
gotten theel" This can only refer to the divine nature 
of our Lord. In conjunction with the Sonship the apos- 
tle applies the lofty language of the Psalmist, chap. xlv. 
6, 7. " Thy throne O God, is forever and ever," &c, 
again, "God sending his own Son, in the likeness of sin- 
ful flesh," Rom. viii. 3. But, in what other sense was, 
or could he have been sent, if he were a son only as a 
man? The apostle most clearly intimates that he was 
Son before he was sent ; and that flesh was the nature as- 
sumed by the Son, as he here uses the term. 

In John xiv and xv chapters, Christ calls the third 
person the Holy Ghost, and the^rs^ person the Father; 
"the Holy Ghost, the spirit of truth, which proceedeth 
from the Father." Therefore the Holy Ghost is not that 
Father, nor is the creation of the human nature of Christ 
the product of the Father, but of the Holy Ghost, see Luke 



88 NAMES OF THE SAVIOUR. 

i. 35. And if the Holy Ghost be the Father, then we 
hear the Saviour praying that the Father may send the 
Father instead of the "Comforter," which is absurd. 
Therefore I conclude, that God the Father is the Father 
of the supreme divinity of our Lord Jesus Christ, and 
Christ is the only begotten Son of God the Father. It 
is well remarked by Professor Kidd, in his Dissertation 
on the Eternal Sonship of Christ, that, " Our Lord's hu- 
manity or human nature had never subsistence by itself." 
Hence our Lord in his human nature never had person- 
ality apart from his divine nature, therefore, it was not 
in respect to his human, but his divine nature that his 
Sonship is predicated. It is contended that the expres- 
sion mentioned in Luke i. 35, signifies that the term, 
" Son of God," must be applied to the human nature of 
Christ: from the fact, that "that holy thing which shall 
be born of thee, (the Virgin,) shall be called the Son of 
God." We are aware that the illustrious Dr. A. Clarke 
thus applies the above text, to the human nature of Christ; 
so does the Rev. Ethan Smith, in his " View of the Trin- 
ity," and a few other modern writers, who, nevertheless 
believe and vindicate the supreme divinity of Jesus 
Christ. As however, all such persons acknowledge the 
title " Son of God" to be a descriptive not an arbitrary 
title, and that it has its foundation in some real relation; 
so if the incarnation of Christ be the foundation in that 
title, it must be used with reference either to the nature 
in which he was incarnated, that is to say, his manhood; 
or to the action of incarnation, that is the act of assuming 



namks or rm: swiouk. 89 

our nature. If the first be allowed, then this is saying- no 
more than that he is the Son of God, because of his mir- 
aculous conception in the Virgin, which has been already 
refuted. If the second, then it is yielded, that with ref- 
erence to the Godhead, he is the Son of God, which is 
what we contend for; and it is allowed that the "holy 
thing," or offspring, born of Mary, is therefore, called 
the Son of God, not because his humanity was formed in 
her immediately by God ; but, as it is expressly stated in 
Luke i. 35, because "the Holy Ghost shall come upon 
thee, and the power of the Highest shall over-shadow 
thee," the effect of which would be the assumption of 
humanity by the divine nature of him who is, in that 
nature the Son; and that the holy offspring should on 
that account, be called the Son of God. This would 
fully allow the doctrine of Christ's divine Sonship, and 
is, probably, the real import of the important passage re- 
ferred to. But if the title Son is given to Christ, neither 
with reference to the miraculous conception of the hu- 
man nature, nor yet because the higher nature united to 
it in one person is, eminently and peculiarly, the Son of 
God: then it only remains to those who refer the title to 
the incarnation of our Lord, to urge that it is given to 
him with reference to the act of incarnation, that is to 
say, the act of assuming our nature. 

Now it is impossible to maintain this, because it has 
no support from Scripture. The passage in Luke i. 35, 
has been given, but that admits certainly only of one of 
the two interpretations above given. Either the coming 



90 NAMES OF THE SAVIOUR. 

of the Holy Ghost upon the virgin, and the overshadow- 
ing of the power of the Highest, refer to the immediate 
production of the humanity by divine power, so that for 
this reason he is called the Son of God, which might be 
allowed without excluding a higher and more emphatic 
reason for the appellation ; or it expresses the assump- 
tion of human nature through the "power of the 
Highest," by the divine nature of Christ, so that the 
"holy offspring" should be called "the Son of God," 
not because a divine person assumed humanity, but 
because that divine person was antecedently the Son of 
God, and is spoken of as such by the prophets. The 
mere act of assuming our nature gives no idea of the 
relationship of a Son; it is neither a paternal nor a 
filial act in any sense, or expresses any such relation. 
It was an act of the Son alone; "forasmuch as the chil- 
dren are partakers of flesh and blood, he also took part 
of the same;" and, as his own act, it could never place 
him in the relation of Son to the Father. It was done, 
it is true, in pursuance of the will of the Father, who 
" sent him " on this errand of mercy into the w T orld ; but 
it was still an act done by the Son, and could not lay 
the foundation of a filial title and character. The hy- 
pothesis cannot, therefore, be supported. If, then, the 
title, " Son of God," as given to our Lord, is not used 
chiefly, probably not at all, with reference to his mirac- 
ulous conception ; if it is not an appellative of his hu- 
man nature, occasionally applied to him when divine 
acts and relations are spoken of, as any other human ap- 



NAMES OF TBI SWIOUR. Q 1 

pcllation. by nutonomy, might be applied ; if it is not 
given him simply because of his assuming our nature; 
if we find it so used, that it can be fully explained by no 
with which he is invested, and by no event of his 
mediatorial undertaking ; it then follows, that it is a title 
characteristic of his mode of existence in the divine es- 
sence, and of the relation which exists between the first 
and second persons in the ever blessed trinity. Nor is 
it to be regarded as a matter of indifference, whether we 
admit the eternal filiation of our Lord, provided we 
acknowledge his divinity. 

It is granted that some divines, who truly decided on 
this point, have rejected the divine Sonship. But in this 
they have gone contrary to the judgment of the churches 
of Christ in all ages ; and they would certainly have 
been marked among heretics in the first and purest times 
of the primitive Church, as Bishop Bull has largely 
and most satisfactorily shown in his " Judgment of the 
Catholic Church." Nor would their professions of 
faith in the divinity of Christ have secured them from 
the suspicion of being allies in some sort of the common 
enemies of the faith, nor have been sufficient to guard 
them from the anathemas with which the fathers so care- 
fully guarded the sacred doctrine of Scripture respect- 
ing the person of our Lord. Such theologians have 
usually rejected the doctrine, too, on dangerous grounds, 
and have resorted to modes of interpretations so forced 
and unwarrantable, that if turned against the doctrines 
which they themselves hold sacred, would tend greatly 



92 NAMES OF THE SAVIOUR. 

to unsettle them. In these respects they have often 
adopted the same modes of attack, and objections of the 
same character, as those which Arians and Socinians 
have wielded against the doctrine of the Trinity itself, 
and have thus placed themselves in suspicious company 
and circumstances. 

The very allegation that the divine Sonship of Christ 
is a mere speculation of no importance, provided his di- 
vinity be held, is itself calculated to awaken vigilance, 
since the most important doctrines have sometimes been 
stolen away " while men have slept," and the plea which 
has lulled them into security has always been, that they 
were not fundamental. 

I am not indisposed to give up that point with Episco- 
pius and Waterland, who both admitted the divine Son- 
ship, though I would not concede its fundamental char- 
acter on the same grounds as the former, but with the 
caution of the latter, who had views much more correct 
on the question of fundamental truths. But though the 
Sonship of Christ may be denied by some who hold his 
divinity, they do not carry out their own views into their 
logical conclusions, or it would appear that their notions 
of the Trinity greatly differ in consequence, from those 
which are held by the believers in this doctrine ; and 
that on a point, confessedly fundamental, they are, in 
some important respects, at issue with the orthodox of 
all ages. This alone demands their serious reflection, 
and ought to induce caution ; but other considerations 
are not wanting to show that points of great moment are 






NAMES OF THE SAVIOUR. 93 

involved in the denial or maintainance of the doctrine in 
question. 

1. "The loose and general manner in which many 
passages of Scripture, which speak of Christ as a Son, 
must be explained by those who deny the divine filiation 
of Christ, seems to sanction principles of interpretation 
which would be highly dangerous, or rather absolute y 
fatal, if generally applied to the Scriptures. 

2. " The denial of the divine Sonship destroys all re- 
lation among the persons of the Godhead ; for no other 
relation of the hypostases are mentioned in Scripture, 
save those which are expressed by 'paternity, filiation, 
and procession ; every other relation is merely economi- 
cal ; and these natural relations being removed, we must 
then conceive of the persons in the Godhead as perfectly 
independent of each other, a view which has a strong 
tendency to endanger the unity of the essence. 

3. "It is the doctrine of the divine paternity only 
which preserves the Scriptural idea that the Father is 
the fountain of Deity, and, as such, the first, the origi- 
nal, the principle. Certainly he must have read the 
Scriptures to little purpose, who will not perceive that 
this is their constant doctrine — that 'of him are all 
things;'^ that though the Son is Creator, yet that it was 
6 by the Son ' the Father made the worlds : and that the 
Father hath given him to have life in himself, which 
can only refer to his divine nature, nothing being the 
source of life in itself, ' as the Father hath life in him- 
self But where the essential paternity of the Father 



94 NAMES OF THE SAVIOUR. 

and the correlative filiation of the Son are denied, these 
Scriptural representations have no foundation in fact, 
and are incapable of interpretation. The term Son at 
once preserves the Scriptural character of the Father, 
and sets up an everlasting barrier against the Arian 
heresy of inferiority of essence ; for, as Son, he must be 
of the same essence of the Father. 

4. " The Scriptural doctrines of the perfect equality 
of the Son, so that he is truly God, equal in glory and 
perfection to the Father, being of the same nature ; and, 
at the same time, the subordination of the Son to the 
Father, so that he should be capable of being c sent, are 
only to be equally maintained by the doctrine of the di- 
vine Sonship. According to those who deny this doctrine, 
the Son might as well be the first as the second person 
in the Godhead ; and the Father the second as well as 
the first. The Father might have been sent by the Son, 
without incongruity; or either of them by the Holy 
Spirit. On the same ground, the order of the solemn 
Christian form of blessing, in the name of the Father, 
Son, and Spirit, so often introduced in the New Testa- 
ment, is grounded on no* reason whatever, and might be 
altered at pleasure. These are most violent and repul- 
sive conclusions, which the doctrine of the Sonship 
avoids, and thus proves its concordance with the Holy 
Scriptures. 

5. " The love of the Father, in the gift of his Son, a 
doctrine so emphatically and so frequently insisted upon 
in Scripture, can have no place at all in the religious 



NAMES OF TIIE SAVIOUR. 95 

system of those who deny the relations of Father and 
Son to exi3t in the Godhead. This I take to be fatal to 
the doctrine; for it insensibly runs into the Socinian 
heresy, and restricts the love of the Father in the gift of 
his So//, to the gift of a man only, if the Sonship of 
Christ be hitman only ; and, in that case, the permission 
of the sufferings of Christ was no greater a manifesta- 
tion of God's love to the world, than his permitting any 
other good man to die for the benefit of his fellow crea- 
tures, — St. Paul, for instance, or any of the martyrs. 

"Episcopius, though he contends against the doctrine 
of the divine Sonship of our Lord being considered as 
fundamental, yet argues the truth of the doctrine on this 
very ground."* 

To this doctrine of our Lord's eternal Sonship, objec- 
tions have been raised, such as the following : First, " If 
the Son be of the Father in any way whatsoever, there 
must have been a commencement of his existence." 

The following we give as an answer: " If these terms 
are properly taken, it will be found, that though every 
effect may be said to be posterior to its cause, it is mere- 
ly in the order of nature, and not of time ; and, in point 
of fact, every effect, properly so called, is co-existent 
with its cause, and must of necessity exactly answer to 
it, both in magnitude and duration ; so that an actually 
infinite and eternal cause implies an actually infinite and 
eternal efTect. 

* Watson's Theo. Inst, Vol. 1, Part Second, p. 552. 



96 NAMES OF THE SAVIOUR. 

"Many seem to imagine, as the words cause and 
effect must be placed one after the other, and the thing 
intended by the latter is different from what is meant by 
the former, that, therefore, a cause must precede its effect, 
at some very short time. But they ought to consider, 
that if any thing be a cause, it is a cause. It cannot be 
a cause and the cause of nothing; no, not for the least 
conceivable space of time. Whatever effect it may pro- 
duce hereafter, it is not the actual cause of it till it is ac- 
tually in being; nor can it be, in the very nature of 
things. 

"Now, suppose, I should call the Son of God the 
infinite and eternal effect of an infinite and eternal cause; 
however the terms of the proposition might be cavilled 
with, and however sophistry might avail itself of the im- 
perfection of human language, and the ambiguity of 
words to puzzle the subject, in the sense in which I take 
the terms cause and effect, the proposition is true, and can- 
not be successfully controverted. And though I would 
by no means affect such language, yet I should be justi- 
fied in its use by the early orthodox writers of the 
Church, both Greek and Latin,* who did not hesitate to 
call the Father the cause of the Son ; though the Latins 
generally preferred using the term principium, which, in 
such a connection, is of the same import as cause. 

" Nor can we consider the following words of our 
blessed Redeemer in any other view : ( I live by the 

* See Bull's Defensio, &c, 



\ LMXB 09 THE swionj. [)7 

Father, 1 John vi. 57, and -As the Father liatli life in 
himself, so huh he given to the Son I ife in him- 

self/ John v. 26. Such Ian 
stood of the mere humanity of ( Jhri 

condly: — Some persons think they reduce 
doctrine in question, to an absurdity, by saying, c If the 
Father generate the Son, he must either be always gen- 
erating him, or an instant must be supposed when his 
generation was completed. On the former supposition, 
the Son is and must ever remain imperfect, and in fact, 
ungenerated; on the latter, we must allow that he cannot 
be eternal.' 

" No one can talk in this manner, who has not first 
confounded time with eternity, the creature with the 
Creator; beings whose existence, and modes, and rela- 
tions are swallowed up and lost in the divine eternity 
and immensity with him w^ho is, in all essential respects, 
eternal and infinite. The orthodox maintain that the 
Son of God is what he is from everlasting, as well as 
the Father. His generation no more took place in any 
imaginary point of eternity than it took place in time. 
Indeed all duration, which is commenced, is time, and 
time it must ever remain. Though it may never end. 
it can never be actually eternity; nor can any being, 
whose existence has commenced, ever become actually 
eternal. This thing implies a contradiction in terms. 

"The nature of God is perfect from everlasting; and 
the generation of the Son of God was no voluntary and 
successive act of God, but something essential to the 
9 



98 NAMES OF THE SAVIOUR. 

Godhead, and therefore natural and eternal. We may 
illustrate this great subject, though we can never fully 
comprehend it. All natural agents, as we call them, 
act or operate uniformly and necessarily. If they should 
change their action or operation, we should immediately 
infer a change of their nature. For their existence, in 
a certain state, implies that action or operation. They 
act or operate by, what we call, a necessity of nature, or, 
as any plain uneducated man would express himself, it 
is their nature so to do. Thus the fountain flows. Thus 
the sun shines. Thus the mirror reflects whatsoever is 
before it. No sooner did the fountain exist in its natural 
state, than it flowed. No sooner did the sun exist in its 
natural state, than it shone. No sooner did the mirror 
exist in its natural state, than it reflected the forms placed 
before it. The actions or operations are all successive. 
But ha$ the fountain existed from everlasting, in its natu- 
ral state, from everlasting it must have flowed. Had 
the sun existed, so it must have shone. Had the mirror 
so existed, so it must have reflected whatever Was before 
it. The Son of God is no voluntary effect of the Fath- 
er's power and wisdom, like the created universe, which 
once did not exist, and might never have existed, and 
must necessarily be confined within the bounds of time 
and space : he is the natural and necessary, and, there- 
fore, the eternal and infinite birth of the Divine fecundi- 
ty, the boundless overflow "of the eternal and infinite 
splendor of the eternal Son, the unspotted mirror and 
complete and adequate image, in whom may be seen all 



names or tut. swioru. ( J9 

the fullness of the < lodhead. This placet the orthodox 
faith at in equal distance from the Sabellian and Arian 
heresies, and will ever make thai distance absolutely in- 
finite. This is no 6gure of speech, but a most sober 
truth." (France's Three Discourses on the Person of 
Christ.) 

We think it is irrefragably proven from Scripture, 
that the term " Son of God," contains a revelation of the 
divinity of our Lord as being of the same nature and es- 
sence with the Father. 

Very much more we might say on the divinity of our 
blessed Saviour, as touching the divine appellatives given 
to him in the Holy Scriptures; but let the above suffice. 
We have been somewhat particular on the term " Son 
of God," for the reasons that some are in danger of mis- 
applying it. As many of our younger brethren in the 
ministry, fond of Dr. A. Clarke's exposition of the term, 
are in danger of misapplying the same, as the Dr. has 
done. As he is nearly alone among the orthodox com- 
mentators on this point, that is in applying the term 
"Son of God" to the Saviour's humanity. We find in 
the memoirs of the Rev. Richard Watson, by Rev. 
Thomas Jackson, "That about the year 1818, Dr. 
Clarke's very elaborate commentary on the Holy Scrip- 
tures was then in a course of publication. In this work 
the Dr. strenuously contends for the true and proper di- 
vinity of Jesus Christ; but at the same time maintains 
that he is the Son of God merely in regard to his hu- 
man nature. It was however at variance with the tenets 



100 NAMES OF THE SAVIOUR. 

of Mr. Wesley and of the Methodist body ; and was 
clearly opposed to almost every orthodox confession of 
faith, and to the general sense of the Christian Church 
in every age. * * * The argument upon which 
he rests his cause, and which is contained in his note on 
Luke i. 35, is deduced entirely from human analogies. 
Against the principles Mr. Watson felt it his duty to 
raise his warning voice. Early in the year 1818, he pub- 
lished one of his most important theological works; an 
elaborate dissertation on the divinity and eternal Sonship 
of Christ, and on the use of reason in matters of revela- 
tion. 

" Dr. Clarke offered no reply to Mr. Watson's publi- 
cation. The pamphlet of the latter on the Sonship of 
Christ was accompanied by similar publications from 
the pens of the Rev. Messrs. Moore, Hare, and Robert 
Martin ; and by these means, and the interference of the 
conference, the orthodoxy of the body was preserved. * 

* * * Dr. Clarke's theory is now generally dis- 
carded." * 

It appears that nearly all the orthodox divines, from 
the days of the apostles to the present, take no other view 
of the phrase " Son of God," than this we vindicate. 
We shall close this point with a quotation from Bishop 
Morris: 

"We think the divine, as well as the human nature of 
Christ, is called Son in divers places by the sacred wri- 

* Life of Watson, by Thomas Jackson, Chap. ii. 



n UOBB Of tii i: > v\ ioik 101 

and among others in the followin) J For the 
Father judgeth no man , but hath committed all j 

ment unto tin 4 Son: that all mm Bhould honor the 

even as they honor the Father. He that honoreth hoi 

the Son, honoreth not the Father which hath sent him. 1 
John v 22,23. 'But unto the Son, he saith, Thy 
throne, O God, is forever and ever : a sceptre of right- 
eousness is the sceptre of thy kingdom.' Heb. i. 8. It 
will here be observed, that the being called ' the Son/ is 
to judge the world, and is to be honored even as the 
Father; that he is called God, and that his throne, as 
such, is forever and ever. Now, to apply all this to the 
humanity of Christ, would be absurd. 7 ' * 

In our opinion, in view of the Scriptures which may 
be adduced, the title " Son of God," is the richest appel- 
lative given to the adorable Saviour in proof of his ab- 
solute divinity. The reader will see that the names of 
God are given to the Saviour, which is farther proof of 
his Supreme Divinity. 

* Sermon 15, 



CHAPTER IV. 

Christ Possessed Divine Attributes. 

In the foregoing chapter we have proved that the 
Scriptures apply divine titles to Jesus Christ, implying 
his Supreme Divinity. We come now to consider the 
attributes which the Scriptures ascribe to him. Of the 
essence of Deity we profess to know nothing, but that 
he is a Spirit. Being known to us by his attributes, and 
by these we know that he is different from all intelligent 
beings, because the latter, though possessing attributes, 
yet they are finite ; the Deity possessing infinite attri- 
butes, a "single, indivisible, independent, and eternal 
unit, we cannot ascribe different perfections or attri- 
butes to him, so as to suppose one attribute separate from, 
and independent of another, capable of acting per se, 
or participating conjunctively with other attributes as an 
integer. It will follow, that every act of the divine Be- 
ing, in regard to himself, is precisely the same in na- 
ture, so that we cannot say of one act it is an effort of 
his power to the exclusion of his wisdom ; nor of his 
wisdom to the exclusion of his goodness; nor of his 
goodness to the exclusion of his holiness, and so of the 
rest. Strictly speaking, we cannot say the power of 



ATTKIIU MIS Of CHRIST. 103 

God, the wisdom of God, the goodn< H of ( fad, 4a, be- 
cause thepowei o( God is God; the wisdom of God is 

God; the goodness of ( Jod ia ( tod 
In contemplating tliis awful subject abstractly we 

should say that there arc no such ihingfl as attrib 
the divine Being, as they are commonly understood* 

What we call his attributes, are only different modes 
of the operations of the same eternal, undivided, and in- 
dependent Unit. Indeed, God is one entire perfection, 
which exerts itself in different ways and actions. But 
as we cannot comprehend this single entire perfection, 
or understand how it exerts the whole of itself, as a sin- 
gle individual agent, in each particular act, as it really 
does, mankind have always been in the habit of assisting 
their contemplations by regarding the nature of the acts 
of this single, indivisible, and eternal agent, and thus in- 
ferring the nature of the divine Being. And as these 
acts appear to differ in quality, we infer a quality in the 
agent, corresponding with the quality of the actions 
which we see ; we call this quality by a name, and thus 
derive the doctrine of attributes. 

" For example: When we see this single, indivisible, 
agent manifesting himself in such a manner as to give 
us the idea of unlimited power, we ascribe omnipotence 
to him as an attribute. When we see a manifestation 
indicating infinite wisdom, we ascribe omniscience to 
him as an attribute. In the same manner in reference 
to the manifestations which indicate justice, goodness, 
mercy, truth, holiness, faithfulness, righteousness, fee., 



104 ATTRIBUTES OF CHRIST. 

all of which we ascribe to him upon such indications. 
Hence, we must never conceive that any act of the di- 
vine Being proceeds from one or more attributes to the 
exclusion of others; or that one attribute participates 
more in one act than in another. It is sufficient to say, if 
we conceive correctly of the divine acts, ice will ascribe 
each equally to all the Divine Attributes." * 

It appears obvious, if Deity be a living, rational, un- 
derived, independent Unit, a Unit, not merely a reality 
of attributes or perfections, but one single, entire perfec- 
tion, a Spirit without parts, or a whole, as a whole im- 
plies an aggregation of parts, then he necessarily is the 
infinite God. And if Jesus Christ, according to the 
Scriptures, possesses the nature of this unoriginated God, 
he necessarily must be the eternal God. That the Scrip- 
tures apply the attributes of this God to Jesus Christ, is 
obvious from the following quotations, &c. : It is allowed 
by all that eternity is an attribute of Deity, Christ is 
called the " Everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace," 
by the prophet Isaiah ix. 6, and in Rev. i. 17, 18, < t 'I 
am the first and the last. I am he that liveth and 
was dead." In chapter xxii. 13, Christ speaks and de- 
clares himself to be "Alpha and Omega, the Beginning 
and the End, the First and the Last." This agrees 
with the eternity of God declared by Isaiah xliii. 10, 11, 
" Before me there was no God formed, neither shall 
there be after me. I, even I, am the Lord; and beside 

* Wood's Mosaic History, improved by J. P. Durbin, A. M. 



\ / iKiiu m cm < Bxmr, 

me there i.> no Saviour." buahxhr.ti th< I. ; 

and there 

In Revelation the tern n ith bri ih in rm ming, 

and are applied to Christ most certainly. Also j; 

8, " I am Alpha and ( imega, the beg inning and f . : 

ing, saith the Lord," it is added, "which is, an I which 

was. and which is to come, the Almighty." Every one 
may see that these words cannot apply to the Father, in 
their connection, but to the Son of God. These terms are 
applied to the Father in verse iv. l: Grace be unto you, 
and peace from him which is, and which was, and which 
is to come: and from seven spirits which are before his 
throne; And from Jesus Christ, who is the faithful wit- 
ness." The same declaration as is made in verse 8, by 
our Lord to himself; hence, if the terms which was, 
and is, and is to come, are descriptive of the eternity of 
the Father, they are also descriptive of the eternity of 
the Son. In Heb. xiii. 8, " Jesus Christ the same yes- 
terday, to-day, and forever." This is not spoken as some 
Socinians contend of the doctrine of Christ, but of Christ 
himself, as is obvious from the context. 

Again, Heb. i. 10, 12: -Thou, Lord, in the begin- 
ning hast laid the foundation of the earth: and the 
heavens are the works of thine hands. They shall per 
ish ; but thou remainest : and they shall all wax old as 
doth a garment ; and as a vesture thou shalt fold them 
up, and they shall be changed ; but thou art the same, 

AND THY YEARS SHALL NOT FAIL." 

These words are quoted from Psalms cii. which all 
10 



106 ATTRIBUTES OF CHRIST. 

admit to be a lofty description of the eternity of God. 
They are here applied to Christ, "and of him they 
affirm, that he was before the material universe;" and 
they affirm, moreover, the immutability of his charac- 
ter, as the eternal Jehovah. " Thy years shall not fail," 
is not only asserted of Christ; "but thou art the same." 
" To get rid of the difficulty which presents itself in the 
words, " In the beginning," John i. 1, Unitarians tell us, 
in a note in the improved version, that ev ap^, here ren- 
dered " In the beginning," signifies " from the commence- 
ment of Christ's ministry." The w r ord («oyo$) they 
admit to be Christ ; that is, Christ had an existence in the 
commencement of his ministry. But had he not, even 
according to their own doctrine, an existence thirty years 
before ? But let us compare the above quotations. We 
find in Heb. i. 10: " And thou, Lord, in the beginning 
hast laid the foundation of the earth," &c. In John 
i. 1, 3 : " In the beginning was the Word, and the Word 
was with God, and the Word was God. The same was 
in the beginning with God. All things were made by 
him ; and without him was not any thing made that was 
made." 

Now, if Unitarians maintain, that " In the beginning," 
(John i. 1,) signifies "from the commencement of 
Christ's ministry," then w r e are obliged to read the quo- 
tation from John thus : " In the commencement of Christ's 

ministry was the Word. All things were made by 

him," &c. When were all things made by him? At 
the commencement of his ministry, or thirty years be- 



i ttkii i rati of ( nu 107 

fore? "Thou, Lord, id the beginning haft laid the 
foundation of the earth." When did th< L 
I ;> called Lord, as the person addressed h< re, Heb. 
i. 10,) lay the foundation of the earth) In the I 
ning of* his ministry, or thirty y^ara before this tii 
from everlasting ? [nfidelity tells as, OJ 
the commencement of his ministry. But can infidelity 
tell when he did not exist? What are we to under 
by the ruler of Israel, " whose goings forth hav< 
of old from everlasting?" Micah v. 2. Surely the "be- 
ginning of his ministry" cannot mean "from everlast- 
ing." But Jesus Christ is " from everlasting ;" there- 
fore he is the everlasting or eternal God, as none in the 
universe can be eternal but the unoriginated God. An- 
other text in the 1 Epistle of St. John i. 2, says: "For 
the life was manifested, and we have seen it, and bear 
witness, and show unto you that eternal life, which 
was with the Father, and was manifested unto us." In 
the first clause, Christ is called the life ; he is then said 
to be " eternal ;" and, that no mistake should arise, as 
though the apostle merely meant to declare that he would 
continue for ever, he shows that he ascribes eternity to 
him in his pre-existent state — that " eternal life" which 
was with the Father, and with him before he was 
" manifested to men." And eternal pre-existence could 
not be more unequivocally marked. The above Scrip- 
tures are but a specimen of many that might be brought 
in proof of the eternity of Jesus Christ, but are full 
proof thereof. 



108 ATTRIBUTES OF CHRIST. 

We notice, in the second place, the omnipresence of 
Christ. " Where two or three are met together in my 
name, there am I in the midst of them," Matt, xviii. 20. 
From the days of the apostles to this present time, hun- 
dreds and thousands of (Congregations have met in the 
name of Jesus for divine worship, and Christ is in the 
midst of them at the same point of time — consequently 
he is omnipresent. The Socinian comment in the New 
Version maintains that this promise is to be " limited to 
the apostolic age." Well, what does this avail? If in 
the apostolic age the disciples of the Saviour met in sun- 
dry parts of the world at the same time, Judea, Asia 
Minor, Europe, &c, he who could be " in the midst 
of them," whenever and wherever they assembled, must 
be omnipresent. The unbelievers try to say, that the 
gift of omnipresence was sometimes given to the apostles, 
and refer to 1 Cor. v. 3. Here the apostle does not say 
that he was present with them, but judged " as though 
he were present." And if St. Paul had, by a figure of 
speech, asserted his presence with, when distant from 
the Corinthians, it would not be a "spiritual" presence, 
as the Socinian Version has it, but a figurative presence. 
Yet no such meaning is hinted at in the text before us. 

Christ has declared himself to be in heaven at the 
same time he was on earth ; this is plain from John iii. 
13 : "No man hath ascended up to heaven, but he that 
came down from heaven, even the Son of man, which is 
in heaven" Hence, if in heaven and on earth at the 
same time, he must be omnipresent ; and if omnipresent 



LTTRIBUra <»i OKBDn 109 

he must be the Supreme God. Again, in Matt xxviii 
20: "And lo lam with you always^ even unto the 
of the world. 1 ' The unbelievers try to explain if, "to 
the end of the age, the Jewish disp asation, till the 
struction of Jerusalem." It is certain that the clai 
"Lo, I am with you always," 7tana$ ra< jpfpc*, "at 
all times," even to q <jvvei%eia, ts atw^oj, the end of the 
world, in its literal and. popular sense. And it has no 
reference to the Jewish or any other dispensation, but 
the continual presence of Jesus with his disciples, from 
generation to generation, till the end of time. Christ 
necessarily must be present in every place, and pervade 
all things, for "by him all things consist," Col. i. 16. 
Here the apostle attributes conservation of all things to 
Christ ; hence his presence must be co-extensive with 
them ; and thus heaven and earth, the universe, must be 
filled with him, with his power and presence : hence, 
this proves the omnipresence of our Lord Jesus Christ. 
3. Perfect knowledge, or omniscience, is ascribed to 
Christ, John xxi. 17. "Peter saith unto him, Lord 
thou knowest all things." To this Christ made no re- 
ply, and therefore admits it in its full latitude ; had it 
not been true, he should not have suffered Peter to con- 
tinue in so dangerous an error. It cannot be said that 
this knowledge is an attribute of the creature, for the 
most extraordinary creature cannot " know all things." 
But he has a perfect knowledge of the thoughts and 
intents of the heart. " I, the Lord, search the heart, I 
try the reins," Jer. xvii. 10. " Thou, even thou only. 



110 ATTRIBUTES OF CHRIST. 

knowest the hearts of all the children of men," 1 Kings 
viii. 39. This knowledge was not the consequence of 
a special revelation or supernatural gift, to answer a 
temporary purpose ; but the eternal wisdom or knowl- 
edge of God, the Son. .Again: "Jesus, knowing their 
thoughts, said," &c, Matt. ix. 4. In Revelations ii. 23, 
it is said : " And all the Churches shall know that I am 
he which searcheth the reins and hearts." It is obvious 
that the Son speaks here, from verse 18 : " These things 
saith the Son of God," &c. " He knew what was in 
man." As the object to whom prayer is addressed, 
knowing the hearts of all. Acts i. 24 : " Thou, Lord, 
which knowest the hearts of all." As none can know 
the hearts of all but Jehovah, therefore, Christ is Jeho- 
vah, because he knows the hearts of all. 

Socinians urge against this ascription of infinite 
knowledge to our Lord, a passage found in Mark xxiv. 
36 : " But of that day and that hour knoweth no man, 
no, not the angels which are in heaven, neither the Son, 
but the Father only." The genuineness of the clause, 
neither the Son, has been disputed, and is not inserted by 
Griesbach, in his text ; there is not, however, sufficient 
reason for its rejection, though certainly in the parallel 
passage, Matt. xxiv. 36, " neither the Son" is not found. 
We are then reduced to this : A number of passages 
explicitly declare that Christ knows all things ; there is 
one which declares that the Son did not know " the day 
and the hour" of judgment. Again : there is a passage 
which certainly implies that even this period was known 



\ rnuBi 1 1> op ( must. 1 1 1 

to CI al, l Tim. vi. ] i. 

"appear 

judge, immediately adds, 

xcupois ftdM§& shall show who is l d and only 

potentate," &c. The day of judgment m here called 
"Am own times," or "Aw .' which, in its 

obvious sense, means the season he hai himself fixed, 
since a certain manifestation of himself is in ill fullfl 
reserved by him to that period. As the " times and the 
seasons/' also are said, in another place, to be in the 
Fathers "own power," so by an equivalent phrase, they 
are here said to be in the power of the Son, because they 
are u his own tunes. 11 Doubtless, then, he knew " the day 
and the hour of judgment." Now, certainly, no such 
glaring and direct contradiction can exist in the word of 
truth, as that our Lord should know the day of judg- 
ment, and, at the same time, and in the same sense, not 
know it. Either, therefore, the passage in Mark must 
admit of an interpretation which will make it consistent 
with other passages, which clearly affirm our Lord's 
knowledge of all things, and consequently of this great 
day, or these passages must submit to 6uch an interpre- 
tation as will bring them into accordance with that in 
Mark. " It cannot, however, be in the nature of things, 
that texts, which clearly predicate an infinite knowledge, 
should be interpreted to mean a finite and partial knowl- 
edge, and this attempt would only establish a contradic- 
tion between the text and the comment."* There u 

* Watson's Inst., vol. 1, pp. 583, 534. 



112 ATTRIBUTES OF CHRIST. 

interpretation which involves no contradiction or absur- 
dity whatever, and which makes it accord with the rest 
of the Scripture testimony on this subject. The first 
" making the word ol8sv, here to have the force of the 
Hebrew conjunction, hiphil, which in verbs denoting 
action, makes that action pass to another. Wherefore, 
EcSfw, which properly signifies, J know, used in the 
sense of hiphil, signifies I make another to know, I de- 
clare. The word has this meaning without dispute. 
1 Cor. ii. 2 : " I determined, stisvat, to know nothing 
among you, but Jesus Christ and him crucified." The 
same, I determined to make known, to preach nothing, 
but Jesus Christ. So, likewise, in the text: " But of 
that day and that hour none maketh you to know," — 
none have power to make you know it." # 

But cannot this difficulty be reconciled on the plain 
ground that the Saviour speaks here as man, and not as 
God. That the words, " neither the Son," apply exclu- 
sively to the human nature of our Lord, as to his body 
which " grew in stature," and as to his soul or mind 
which increased in wisdom. " He could not be said to 
increase in wisdom," Luke ii. 52, " as he was God ; nor 
could this be said of his body, for that is not the subject 
of wisdom." It will be granted, as man he did not know- 
beyond the capacities of human and finite understanding. 
He could not, in this respect, know things not knowable 
by man, otherwise than the divine nature thought prop* 

* McKnight's Harmony. 



LTTSSBI i i ■ Of OHBOT 

ear to communicate to him. Th Chrisl didnol 

know, as man, the precise time, the day and hour ofth< 
judgment This matin- ia stated peculiarly by the i 
gelist: M Of that day ami hour knoweth no man : H 

follows, ^neither the Son." ^ He doth not say the Son 

of Hod nor the xoyo*, or Word, but the Son only." It 
may be said, "that the Son of man was ignorant of 
some things, though the Son of God knew everything." 
Shall it be asked, why this equivocation in the an 
of the Saviour ? We cannot behold any inconsistency 
or insincerity in the Saviour, "to deny that he knew 
what he really did know in one capacity, while he was 
ignorant of it in another. Thus, in one place he says, 
1 Now I am no more in the world,' John xvii. 1 1 ; and 
in another, ■ Ye have the poor always with you, but me 
ye have not always,' Matt. xxvi. 11. Yet on another 
occasion he says, ' Lo, I am with you always,' Matt, 
xxviii. 20." 

Again, Eccl. iii. 17 :"God shall judge the righteous 
and the wicked:" But it is said in John v. 22: " For the 
Father judgeth no man ; but hath committed all judg- 
ment unto the Son." Hence, the Son of God shall judge 
the world, but He that shall judge the world — " the 
righteous and the wicked," is God, therefore Christ 
is God: who shall judge the world, consequently 
if Christ shall be the judge, would any dare affirm, 
that the judge is ignorant, not knowing the day or 
hour of such judgment? What but eternal Omnis- 
cience could judge the world, to judge it equitably! 



114 ATTRIBUTES OF CHRIST. 

Christ as judge of the world necessarily must possess 
Omniscience. 

And by this perfect knowledge he " Knew from the 
beginning who they were that believed not, and who 
should betray him;" John vi. 64. Thus the Scripture 
ascribes to him an existence infinitely glorious and holy, 
knowing all things from everlasting to everlasting, as 
God over all, blessed for evermore. 

Fourthly. Omnipotence is peculiar to supreme divin- 
ity ; degrees of power are applicable to a finite being, 
but his capacity cannot admit of infinite power ; hence 
God alone is susceptible of Omnipotence, which implies 
infinite power. The Scriptures ascribe infinite power 
to Jesus Christ, therefore Jesus Christ must be God. 

For instance, in Rev. i. 8. we read " I am Alpha and 
Omega, the beginning and the ending, saith the Lord, 
who is, and who was, and who is to come, the Almigh- 
ty." In the eleventh verse of this chapter Christ speaks 
these words of himself, or declares them of himself in 
both these verses : which show his Omnipotence. 

To the Jews Christ said, " What things soever he 
(the Father) doeth, these also doeth the Son likewise. 11 

"That as the Father hath life in himself, so hath 
he given to the Son to have life in himself," which 
marks an obvious distinction between Christ and all the 
created beings in the universe, he has " life in himself 11 
even as the " Father hath life in himself;" hence Christ 
is equal with the Father in the strongest sense. " By 
his eternal generation this life was derived from the 



ASTBMBOVm <>• ( mki-i. I 10 

Father to him, ami he pOC equally with the 

Father; by the appointment of Ins Father he m made 
the source of eternal life to believers, as having that 

Lin: in BIM8ILI to bestow, and to Supply I | 

We read in John i. 3: "All thin mad-' by him. 

and without him was not anything made which 
made; and in Heb. i. 2: "Upholding all things by the 
word of his power." These texts present us with the 
strongest possible proof of his absolute- Omnipotence, and 
we shall close this point with the Saviour's own declara- 
tion, "All things which the Father hath are hub, 3 
John xvi. 15. 

Fifthly. Immutability is ascribed to Christ, Heb. xiii. 
8. "Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, to-day, and for- 
ever." Psalm cii. 27, quoted by St. Paul, Heb. i. 10: 
" And thou, Lord, in the beginning hast laid the foun- 
dation of the earth, and the heavens are the works of thy 
hands ; they shall perish, but thou remainest : yea, all of 
them shall wax old as doth a garment, and as a vesture 
shalt thou change them, and they shall be changed ; but 
thou art the same, and thy years shall have no end." The 
apostle declares this passage to be spoken of Christ, 
which manifests his absolute immutability. 

Hence the word of God directly ascribes to Christ the 
attributes of Eternity, Omnipresence, Omniscience, Om- 
nipotence and Immutability. No angel or creature can 
possess those attributes. If this could be possible, then a 
finite'being could possess an infinite; but this is absurd. 
Hence, if no finite creature can possibly possess infinite 



116 ATTRIBUTES OF CHRIST. 

attributes, Jesus Christ can according to the Scriptures, 
and as they are only peculiar to God, Jesus Christ 
is God, the Supreme Being of the universe* 

* And who can conclude otherwise, when it is considered, that 
the Scriptures positively assert, that the world shall be judged, at 
the " revelation of the righteous judgment of God; who will render 
to every man according to his deeds." Rom. i. 5, 6. In connection 
with this, read Ecclesiastes xi. 9: "But know thou, that for 
these things God will bring thee into judgment." And chapter xii. 
14: " For God shall bring every work into judgment, with every se- 
cret thing, whether it be good or whether it be evil." But the 
Scriptures assert too, that Jesus Christ shall judge the world. This 
is plain from the following Scriptures. Rom. xiv. 10: "For we 
shall all stand before the judgment seat of Christ." Acts x. 42: 
" And he commanded us to preach unto the people and to testify 
that it is he which was ordained of God to be the judge of quick 
and dead." Again, John v. 22: " For the Father judgeth no man, 
but hath committed all judgment unto the Son." From the above 
passages, the evident conclusion is, that God shall judge the world. 
But Jesus Christ shall judge the world, therefore Jesus Christ is 
God. Take this in connection with the foregoing pages, and the 
reader may perceive, that the adorable Saviour possesseth the total- 
ity of absolute and eternal Divinity. 



CHAPTER V. 

The Acts and Divine Worship of Christ are 
proof of his Divinity. 

1. The acts of Christ are numerous, and peculiar to 
the character of God. acts which cannot be performed by 
any creature however exalted. The first of this kind is 
creation, the making- out of nothing all things ; this is 
possible only to divine power. 

The "worlds" were made by him — "by whom also 
he made the worlds." Heb. i. 2. " Through faith we 
understand that the worlds were framed by the word of 
God, so that things which are seen were not made of 
things that do appear;" ch. xi. 3. In both texts the phy- 
sical creation is meant. 

Modern Arians (Newlights) say of the text first quoted 
11 by whom (Christ) he (God) made the worlds.''' That 
is, God by Christ, as a delegated being made the visible 
creation; this is a pitiful exposition. All that can in 
truth be said of this matter is, that, the Father made the 
" worlds" by "his Son;" by faith we understand that the 
worlds were made or framed by the word or fiat of God, 
but Jesus the Son of God made the "worlds," therefore 
Christ is the God that made all things. 



\ 



118 ACTS AND WORSHIP OF CHRIST. 

According to the Arian scheme of reasoning, a crea- 
ture may be a creator, and a creature. They admit that 
Christ made the " worlds" and that he was made for this 
purpose; and that it cannot from hence be concluded 
that he is God equal with the Father. This implies 
that Christ as a creature is finite, for the unbelievers of 
his supreme divinity cannot for consistency sake make 
him infinite; for then they would have two infinite beings, 
the Father and the Son, which according to their own 
common sense would be absurd. Then the Son of God 
as a finite being, made the worlds. This conclusion is 
obviously contrary to the word of God. Instance, Rom. 
i. 20: " For the invisible things of him from the crea- 
tion of the world are clearly seen, being understood by 
the things that are made, even his eternal power and God- 
head; so that they are without excuse." So we find that 
the invisible things of God, " even his eternal power 
and Godhead," are " clearly seen " by the things that 
are made, that even the heathens are without excuse, 
that is, they may know God by the works of God. 
What monstrous nonsense it is to say that a creature is 
the creator, and preserver of all things? 

But is it not said that "God" by his Son "made the 
worlds ? n Yes, in this phrase it is so said, but the same 
Apostle says that the " worlds were framed by the word 
of God." There are several passages of Scripture 
wherein the persons of the Godhead address each other. 
Hos. i. 7. " But I (Jehovah) will have mercy upon the 
house of Judah, and will save them by the Lord their 



\< is \m> vniMUP Of < JHKB 1 10 

God. :? Again. "Then the Lord rained upon Sodom 
aiid upon Qomorrah brimstone and fire, from the I 
out of Heayen; n Gen. \i\. 24. Will anj 
nans make the Lord, who rained brimstone, L ■ in char- 
acter than the Lord in Heaven, or the Lord that | 
the house of Judah, loss than the Lord their God, If 
not, then the phrase that God made the world bvhx 
does not imply of course, that the Son is of an inferior 
nature. " It implies that there is a distinction between 
the Father and the Son." 

The conclusion is, that u creating power is the source 
of all power," except itself, and if it be not infinite, there 
is no infinite power manifested, hence no " Godhead 
clearly seen." But the scriptures determine this point 
incontrovertibly, Heb. iii. 4: " every house is buildcd by 
some man ; but he that built all things, is God. " Then 
the conclusion inevitably fastens upon the mind, that if 
God, by his Son made the worlds, and " he that made all 
things is God," therefore the Son of God, is the God of 
creation, and creation is the act of the Son of God. 

Another act of Christ's is preservation, " by him all 
things consist," or are preserved. He must possess 
Omnipotence not only " but also ubiquity, since he must 
be present to all things, in order to their constant conser- 
vation. " 

But Jesus Christ does the w r ork of the Father, as he 
says, "If I do not the works of my Father, believe me not; 
but if I do, though ye believe not me, believe the works. w 

Does the Father send the spirit % He claims the same 



120 ACTS AND WORSHIP OP CHRIST. 

power, — " the comforter, whom I send unto you." The 
Spirit is hereby called, "the Spirit of Christ," and "the 
Spirit of God." Thus the giving of the Spirit is indif- 
ferently ascribed to the Son and to the Father." 

Another act peculiar to God, is the forgiveness of sins, 
as sin is the transgression of the law of God, he alone 
is the offended party, and he only can forgive ; others 
may declare the conditions on which God forgives, but 
actual forgiveness is with God only. But Jesus Christ 
forgives sins, therefore he is God. 

Many passages of Scripture might be adduced. Let 
one suffice: u He said to the sick of the palsy, Son, be 
of good cheer, thy sins be forgiven thee." 

Such were the acts of the Saviour of men in the days 
of his sojourning on earth. " If any creature is capable 
of doing the same mighty works, then is all distinction 
between created, finite, natures, and the uncreated Infi- 
nite destroyed." But creation, preservation and salva- 
tion, can only be the work of the immaculate God. But 
these works are ascribed to Jesus Christ, because he ac- 
tually has wrought them, then the inevitable conclusion 
is, that he is the Supreme God, 

In the second place, we come to show that divine 
worship was paid to Christ. 

The disciples worshipped him, they worshipped him 
as a divine person, and enjoined this upon Christians to 
the end of time. God, and his prophets and apostles, 
reprobated in the severest terms idolatry. Hence, if 
Jesus Christ were only a created being, the apostles 



V( N \m» WOSBMIB OF I H UB i 

:m 1 ( Ihristianity 
The Holj Scriptu 
( Jo 1. an 1 1 qnal with ( k>d ; tl 
idoration. 

•• The /a»< that divine worship 
his disciples, must be first established [osl 
falling down at his feet an 1 r n hipping him are so fre- 
quent in the Gospel, that it is not necessary to select the 
instances which are so familiar; and though we allow 
that the word proskuneiu is sometimes used to express 
that lowly reverence with which, in the east, it has heen 
always customary to salute persons considered as greatly 
superior, and especially rulers and sovereigns, it is yet 
the same word which, in a great number of instances, is 
used to express the worship of the supreme God. We 
are, then, to collect the intention of the act of worship, 
whether designed as a token of profound civil respect 
or of real and divine adoration, from the circumstances 
of the instances on record. When a leper comes and 
: worships' Christ, professing to believe that he had the 
power of healing diseases, and that in himself, which 
power he could exercise at his will, all which he ex- 
presses by saying, ' Lord, if thou wilt, thou canst make 
me clean,' we see a Jew retaining that faith of the Jew- 
ish Church in its purity, which had been corrupted 
among so many of his nation, that the Messiah w r as to 
be a divine person ; and viewing our Lord under that 
character, he regarded his miraculous powers as origi- 
nal and personal, and so hesitated not to worship him. 
11 



122 ACTS AND WORSHIP OF CHRIST. 

Here then is a case in which the circumstances clearly 
show that the worship was religious and supreme. 
When the man who had been cured of blindness by 
Jesus, and who had defended his prophetic character 
before the council, before he knew that he had a higher 
character than that of a prophet, was met in private by 
Jesus, and instructed in the additional fact that he was 
the i Son of God,' he worshipped him. ' Jesus heard 
that they had cast him out, and when he had found him, 
he said unto him, Dost thou believe on the Son of God ? 
He answered, and said, Who is he, Lord, that I might 
belive on him % And Jesus said unto him, Thou hast 
both seen him, and it is he that talketh with thee. And 
he said, Lord, I believe, and he worshipped him;' be 
it observed under his character, 'Son of God,' a title 
which, we have already seen, was regarded by the Jews 
as implying actual Divinity, and which the man under- 
stood to raise Jesus far above the rank of a mere 
prophet." * 

When the disciples were fully convinced of our Lord's 
Messiahship arising out of a "series of splendid" mir- 
acles, "they came and worshipped him, saying, Of a 
truth thou art the Son of God ! " Matt. xiv. 33. Upon 
the miraculous draught of fishes, Peter "fell at his feet." 
Here was divine homage. The apostles worshipped 
the Saviour. This the Father commanded to be so by 
the prophets. Instance, Isa. viii. 13, "Sanctify the Lord 

* Watson. 



\< is \M» W0B8HIF OF ( HE] 

of hos If; and let him bt yout im !>• 

your di \\ orship him all 

impar< d with !!■ b. i. 6: " And a \ iin, win n 
he brings tli in the I the world, hi 

And lit all the ar. hip him." 

Zech. xii. 10: "And 1 (Jehovah) will | q the 

house of David, and upon the inhabitants of Jerufi 
the spirit of grace and supplications; i \ loot 

upon 3i u whom they have pierced." John xi\ 
one of the soldiers with a spear pierced his sid 
forthwith came thereout blood and water." Jesus Christ, 
therefore, is Jehovah, the object to be sanctified and 
feared. But, if there be doubts about Jesus Christ 
ing the true object of worship after all we have said 
above, we shall produce texts from the Scripture of the 
New Testament in greater abundance in proof thereof. 
It is clear from John v. 22, 23: "For the Father judg- 
eth no man ; but hath committed all judgment unto the 
Son : that all men should honor the Son, even as they 
honor the Father. He that honoreth not the Son, hon- 
oreth not the Father which hath sent him." Here we 
see the infinite prerogative of judging the universe, is 
committed by the Father to the Son, for this great end. 
that all intelligent beings should honor the Son as they 
honor the Father, in the same manner and in the same 
degree. In doing this they worship one God, as the 
Saviour told the Jews, " I and my Father are one." — 
;; Wherefore, God hath highly exalted him, and E 
him a name which is above every name: that at the 



124 ACTS AXD WORSHIP OF CHRIST. 

name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in hea- 
ven, and things in earth, and things under the earth. — 
That every tongue should confess, that Jesus Christ is 
Lord, to the glory of God the Father." Phil. ii. 9, 11. 
In this passage all celestial, terrestial and subterranean 
(as is meant by the original) are required to worship 
Christ "to the glory of God the Father. 57 The above 
passage is probably quoted from Isa. xlv. 22, 23, where 
to God "shall every knee bow — shall every tongue 
swear." We have said the apostles worshipped the Sa- 
viour, so did many others. The Syrophenician woman 
"worshipped him, saying," &c. Matt. xv. 25. And this 
act of religions worship was commended by our Saviour, 
and her prayer answered. The man who came to Jesus 
to cast the devil out of his son, worshipped him. Mark 
ix. 24. But it appears needless to multiply quotations 
on this point. We shall, however, adduce a few in- 
stances of divine worship given to the Saviour subse- 
quent to his resurrection and ascension. Lukexxiv. 51 ? 
52: " He was parted from them, and carried up into hea- 
ven. And they worshipped him, and returned to Jeru- 
salem with great joy." This act must have been one of 
divine adoration, since it was performed after he was 
parted from his disciples, and cannot be resolved into a 
token of personal or civil respect; which is alwa}^s done 
in the presence of superiors. 

When St. Stephen, called the protomartyr, was stoned, 
the Evangelist records two instances of prayer offered to 
out Lord by this man " full of the Holy Ghost." " Lord 



im \\i» woman <»i unuv« 

■ \ . lid, 
their charge v \ 60. [n the former, h 

knowledge a the Saviour to be th( 
of the sons ofmen in the i ternal state; Id th< 
knowledges Christ to be trnorandjndj 

having the power to remit sins, to jud 

sins, all of which are manifestly divine acts, which 

that Stephen addressed his prayers to Jesus Chri 
God. But Socinians say, it is right at Bometimei to ad- 
dress prayers to Christ while living and seen, but not be- 
ing seen alters the case. 

c; The papists, if this be so, would find a new refuta- 
tion of their practice of invocating dead saints furnished 
by the Socinians. Were they alive and src/i. pray* r to 
them would be lawful; but now they are invisible, it is 
idolatry! Even image-worship would derive from this 
casuistry, a sort of apology, as the seen image is, at least, 
the visible representation of the invisible saint or angel:* 
But, "suppose a dying person to pray to a man, visible 
and near his bed, ' Lord, receive my spirit : Lord, lay 
not this sin to the charge of my enemies,' who sees not 
that this would be gross idolatry? And yet if Jesus be a 
mere man, the idolatry is the same, though that man be 
in heaven. It will not alter the case, for the Socinian 
to say, that the man Jesus is exalted to great dignity and 
rule in the invisible world; for he is, after all, on their 
showing, but a servant ; not a dispenser of the eternal 
states of men, not an avenger or a passer by of sin in 
his own right, that he should lay sin to the charge of 



126 ACTS AND WORSHIP OF CHRIST. 

any one, or not lay it, as he might be desired to do by a 
disciple ; and if St. Stephen had these views of him, he 
would not, surely, have asked of a servant what a ser- 
vant had no power to grant. Indeed, the Socinians 
themselves give up the point, by denying that Christ is 
lawfully the object of prayer. There, however, he is 
prayed to, beyond all controversy, and his right and 
power to dispose of the disembodied spirits of men is as 
much recognized in the invocation of the dying Stephen, 
as the same right and power in the Father, in the last 
prayer of our Lord himself, ' Father, into thy hands I 
commend my spirit.' " (Rev. R. Watson.) 

St. Paul "sought the Lord thrice" that the thorn in 
his flesh might be removed. That the apostle prayed 
to Christ is plain, for he adds, " and he said unto me, My 
grace is sufficient for thee, for my strength is made per- 
fect in weakness : most gladly, therefore, will I glory in 
infirmities, that the power oFCHRisTmay rest uponme." 

Again, "St. Paul prays to Christ conjointly with the 
Father in behalf of the Thessalonians." " Now our 
Lord Jesus Christ himself, and God, even our Father, 
which hath loved us, and hath given us everlasting con- 
solation, and good hope through grace, comfort your 
hearts, and establish you in every good word and work." 
2 Thess. ii. 16, 17. In like manner he invokes our 
Lord to grant his spiritual presence to Timothy, " The 
Lord Jesus be with thy spirit." 2 Tim. iv. 22. 

Again, c * Unto the church of God which is at Corinth, 
to them that are sanctified in Jesus Christ, called to be 



W TS AM) W0B8HIF OF OHBIC 

saints, with all that in bvsri place oaxi upoh thi 

NAME or J BS1 B ( »H EUBT 01 B I jOBD, both tin us ;m.i oin.s. ; 

1 Cor, i. 2. In Revelation, too, St. John worships 
Christ, " falling at his feel as dead." Rev. i. 17. More- 
over, the inhabitants of heaven worship ( 'hrist •• Ami 
again, when he bringeth in the first begotten into the 

world, he saith, And let all the aaci:i.s of I ion wor- 
ship hoi." Heb. i. G. The apostle in this text proves 
that Ghiist is superior to angels, and therefore supreme- 
ly divine, because angels themselves are commanded to 
zv or ship him. 

In the scenic representation of the book of Revela- 
tion, the direct worship of Christ is exhibited. Rev. v. 
11, 14: " And I beheld, and I heard the voice of many- 
angels round about the throne, and the beasts, and the 
elders; and the number of them was ten thousand, and 
thousands of thousands; saying with a loud voice, Wor- 
thy is the Lamb that was slain, to receive power, and 
riches, and wisdom, and strength, and honor, and glory, 
and blessing. And every creature which is in heaven, 
and on the earth, and under the earth, and such as are 
in the sea, and all that are in them, heard I, saying. 
Blessing, and honor, and glory, and power, be unto him 
that sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb, forever 
and ever. And the four beasts said Amen. And the 
four and twenty elders fell down and worshipped him 
that liveth forever and ever." To this may be added, 
"all the doxologies to Christ, in common with the 
Father and Holy Spirit, and the benedictions made in 



128 ACTS AND WORSHIP OF CHRIST. 

his name in common with theirs ; for all these are forms 
of worship. The ascription of eternal glory and ever- 
lasting dominion, if addressed to any creature, however 
exalted, would be idolatrous and profane." " To him be 
glory and dominion for ever and ever. Amen." " But 
grow in grace, and in the knowledge of our Lord and 
Saviour Jesus Christ: to him be glory for ever and 
ever. Amen." 2 Pet. iii. 18. 

These are but a few of the many passages which 
might be quoted that ascribe "glory" to our Adorable 
Redeemer: but those will suffice. " The apostles blessed 
the people ministerially in the name of Christ, as one 
of the blessed Trinity." For instance, " Grace to you, 
and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus 
Christ." " The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with 
you all," or more fully, " The grace of our Lord Jesus 
Christ, the love of God, and the communion of the Holy 
Ghost, be with you all." 2 Cor. xiii. 14. The whole 
tenor of the Old and New Testaments recognize Jesus 
Christ to be the Eternal God, worthy of divine homage. 
Some Arians suggest, that there are supreme and inferior 
worship set forth in the Scriptures: this is the way that 
Dr. Samuel Clark reconciles the worship of Christ with 
his half Arian doctrine, "The same distinctions are 
sophistically resorted to by Roman Catholics to vindi- 
cate the worship of angels, the Virgin Mary, and de- 
parted saints." Who cannot see the whole tenor of 
Scripture runs counter to it ? For example, " He that 
saerih'ceth unto any god, save unto the Lord only, he 



ACTS AM> WOBUULP Of ( 11 K r 

shall be utterly >1- rtroy< I Ei 

:i. consi taring with himself thai ml] 

solute and 

by this law, should have gone and - 

. and have been conneted of it before the jud| - — 
the apology he must have made for it, I - 

have run thus: 'Gentlemen, though 1 hai 

other gods, yet, I hope you will observe that I did il 
absolutely: I meant not any absolute or supreme sacri- 
fice, (which is all the law forbids,) but relative and in- 
ferior only. I regulated my intentions with all imagin- 
able care, and my esteem with the most critical exact- 
ness : I considered the other gods, whom 1 sacrificed to, 
as inferior only, and infinitely so; reserving all sover- 
eign sacrifice to the supreme God of Israel.' This, or 
the like apology, must, I presume, have brought oil the 
criminal, with some applause for his acuteness, if your 
principles be true. Either you must allow this, or you 
must be content to say, that not only absolute supreme 
sacrifice, (if there be any sense in that phrase,) but ail 
sacrifice was, by the law, appropriated to God only. 

u Another instance of worship is, making of vows, re- 
ligious vows. We find as little appearance of your famed 
distinction here, as in the former case. We read nothing of 
sovereign and inferior, absolute and relative vows, that we 
should imagine supreme vows to be appropriate to God, 
inferior permitted to angels or idols, or to any creature. 
Swearing is another instance much of the same kind 
with the foregoing. Swearing by God's name is a plain 
12 



130 ACTS AND WORSHIP OF CHRIST. 

thing, and well understood; but if you tell us of sover- 
eign and inferior swearing, according to the inward res- 
pect or intention you have, in proportion to the dignity 
of the person by whose name you swear, it must sound 
perfectly new to us. All swearing which comes short 
in its respects, or falls below sovereign, will, I am afraid, 
be little better than profaneness." Dr. Waterland. 

The Socinians have at length discovered the above ab- 
surdity of sovereign and inferior worship and profanity, 
&c. In fact the Holy Bible from first to last recognizes 
Jesus Christ as God, the Eternal God, over all and 
blessed for ever; and all the sophistry in the universe can- 
not overthrow this grand and glorious truth. None less 
than the glorious Lord God, the infinite and eternal 
One, could act or do what Jesus Christ has done, in cre- 
ation and preservation ; therefore, from his acts, he must 
be God, equal with the Father in glory, majesty and 
power. 

Again : From the divine worship paid him, He neces- 
sarily must be God, worthy of the same honor as the 
Father, and the only conclusion is found in Revelation, 
xix. 10, "Worship God." The Gospel, according to 
John, chap. i. ver. 17 says, "Grace and truth came 
by Jesus Christ." Verse 34: " And I saw and bare 
record, that this is the Son of God." Verse 14: "And 
the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us." Verse 
1: " And the Word was God." Jesus Christ was God, 
therefore worship Jesus Christ. 



CHAPTER VI. 
The Humanity of Christ. — Hypostatic Uniox 

In the early ages of the Church, it was necessary to 
establish the proper humanity of the Saviour, as well as 
his divinity. The former was denied even in the days 
of St. John, as his epistles appear to be answers, or ar- 
guments, going to substantiate the proper humanity of 
Christ. "Hereby know ye the Spirit of God: Every 
spirit that confesseth that Jesus Christ is come in the 
flesh, is of God: And every spirit that confesseth not 
that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh, is not of God : and 
this is that spirit of anti-Christ." 1 John iv. 2, 3. So 
it appears that those who deny that Christ possessed pro- 
per humanity, that he possessed a real body and soul, 
were, by the evangelist's own showing, spiritually anti- 
Christians. 

The divinity of Christ is strongly proven by the Gos- 
pel of St. John, as it appears his humanity is by his 
epistles. 

The Gnostics denied in reality the humanity of the 
Saviour ; they erred as to both natures. They did not 
deny, but affirmed that they took place in appear- 
ance only. Still later, the Eutyches fell into a similar 



132 HUMANITY OF CHRIST. 

error, by teaching that the human nature of Christ was 
absorbed into the divine, and that his body had no real 
existence. While the Eutyches thus erred, the Appolo- 
ninarians rejected the existence of a human soul in our 
Lord, and taught that the Godhead supplied its place. 

"Various other refinements were at different times 
propagated ; but the true sense of Scripture appears to 
have been very accurately expressed by the Chalcedon 
council, in the fifth century, — that in Christ there is one 
person ; in the unity of person, two natures, the divine 
and the human ; and that there is no change, or mixture, 
or confusion of these two natures, but that each retains 
its own distinguishing properties. With this agrees the 
Athanasian creed, whatever be its date, — perfect God 
and perfect man, of a reasonable soul, and human flesh 
subsisting, — who, although he be God and man, yet he 
is not two; but one Christ: one, not by conversion of 
the Godhead into flesh, but by taking the manhood inl^ 
God ; one altogether, not by confusion of substance, but 
by unity of person ; for as the reasonable soul and flesh 
is one man, so God and man is one Christ. 

" The Church of England by adopting this creed, has 
adopted its doctrine on the hypostatical union, and has 
further professed it in her second article : < The Son, 
which is the Word of the Father, begotten from ever- 
lasting of the Father, the very and eternal God, of one 
substance with the Father, took man's nature in the 
womb of the blessed virgin of her substance ; so that the 
two whole and perfect natures, that is to say, the God- 



himamiv op uiuub t . L38 

head and manhood, werojoini & m one pa 

never to be divided, wheteof u one ChriK m Qod 
and very man.' Whatavei objection 
against these views bj the mere reason of man, nnalihi 
to comprehend mysteries eo high, but often bold enoe 
to impugn them, they certainly <xhil.it the doctrine of 
the New Testament on these important subjects, though 
expressed in different terms." Rev. R. Watson. 

Without doubt the " completeness of each nature, and 
the union of both in one person? is the only key to the 
language of the Scriptures, and explains and harmonizes 
the whole so as to afford the strongest proof, that our Lord 
is truly God and truly man. All the Scriptures say of 
Christ, either belongeth to the " Theologia, the divinity 
of our Saviour, or to the o^ovo^ca, the incarnation of 
Christ." 

" Does any one ask, for instance, if Jesus Christ was 
truly God, how he could be born and die ? how he could 
grow in wisdom and stature? how he could be subject 
to law? be tempted? stand in need of prayer? how his 
soul could be exceeding sorrowful even unto death ? be 
c forsaken of the Father?' purchase the church with 
'his own blood?' have 'a joy set before him?' be exalt- 
ed ? have { all power in heaven and earth' given to him? 
&c. The answer is, that he was also man. If, on the 
other hand, it be a matter of surprise, that a visible 
man should heal diseases at his will, and without refer- 
ring to any higher authority, as he often did; still 
the winds and the waves ; know the thoughts of men's 



134 HUMANITY OF CHRIST. 

hearts; foresee his own passion in all its circumstances; 
authoritatively forgive sins ; be exalted to absolute do- 
minion over every creature in heaven and earth; be 
present whenever two or three are gathered in his name ; 
be with his disciples to the end of the world; claim uni- 
versal homage and the bowing of the knee of all crea- 
tures to his name; be associated with the Father in sol- 
emn ascriptions of glory and thanksgiving, and bear 
even the awful names of God, names of description and 
revelation, names which express divine attributes: — 
what is the answer ? Can the Socinian scheme, which 
allows him to be a man only, produce a reply . ? " # They 
cannot give a proper answer on their hypothesis, for the 
only explanation of all these statements is, that Jesus 
Christ is God as well as man, and by this the consisten- 
cy and truth of the Bible are exhibited. 

Again: without doubt, Jesus Christ is truly man, 
" though modern Arians inform us that Christ possessed 
no rational soul, by which, if they mean any thing, they 
must mean either that the soul of Christ was irrational, or 
that he had no soul; the latter being the more charitable 
conclusion, we will fix on it as the correct one. But 
how does this agree with the Scriptures, ' Thou shalt 
make his soul an offering for sin;' 'My soul is exceed- 
ing sorrowful, even unto death?' Judge ye. But though 
they say he had no rational soul, he was a pre-existent, 
super-angelic spirit, created at some period before the 

* Watson's Inst. Vol. 1, part 2, page 619. 



RUH \M i \ OF OHBIBTi 

temporal univi 0T86, and who. in the fulluos of tim< 

sained a human body, and animated it aa oui 

mate our bodies. To all this it i 

this account of Christ be true, then he belon 

classification of neither God, angels, nor men, 

being unheard of before, unknowing and unknown, till 

the Unitarian revelation brought him to light; hut how 

many of these sentiments can be found in the Bible I 

Not one. Christ then is the Son of God respecting his 

humanity. 

" His mediatorial character, comprises both his hu- 
man and divine natures. After asserting-, and we trust 
proving, from the Scriptures, both the proper humanity 
and real divinity of our Lord Jesus Christ, let us, for a 
moment, observe him in the union of these two; for 
though the divine nature is not absorbed by the human, 
nor the human changed into the divine, yet are they 
permanently united in the person of the Son of God : 
and, hence, while some Scriptures speak of him only as 
a man, and others only as God, there is still another 
class of Scriptures which speak of him in reference to 
both, and which can be explained on no other principle; 
as John iii. 13: ' And no man hath ascended up to hea- 
ven, but he that came down from heaven, even the Son 
of man, which is in heaven.' Here Christ speaks to 
Nicodemus in the present tense; and though his bodily 
presence was on earth, yet he calls himself the Son of 
man which is in heaven; for, as God, he fills immensf 

* Bishop Morris's Sermon. 



136 HUMANITY OF CHRIST. 

We perceive the Bishop has distinguished the Scrip- 
tures that apply to Ghrist into three classes : "Some 
Scriptures speak of him only as man ; others only as 
God ; another class of Scriptures which speak of him 
in reference to both," God and man. Dr. Durbin has 
made about the same divisions of the Scriptures in proof 
of the supreme divinity of Christ, in a sermon he preach* 
ed first in the representative hall, during the session of 
the legislature of South Carolina. In viewing these 
divisions of Scripture in their application to the charac- 
ter of Christ, we hope to exhibit more largely the hy- 
postatic union of Christ. 

First, let us notice the class of Scriptures that speak of 
Christ as man only, proving him to be verily and truly 
man. We presume it is needless to gather all the Scrip- 
tures which apply to this point; a few texts will serve our 
purpose, as we have already adduced sufficient evidence 
on this head. 

The Saviour is called "the Son of man' 7 repeatedly. 
" A man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief." This 
can only be affirmed of real humanity. But Christ had 
a body which grew in "stature;" he was hungry, and 
thirsty, and weary; " He took on himself not the nature 
of angels, but the seed of Abraham :" that is, our nature, 
with all its innocent infirmities, and every thing pertain- 
ing to it ; having a body, which is known from his being 
born, suffering, dying, &c. 

Again: he had a reasonable soul as well as a real 
body. This is obvious from the following Scriptures : 



HOI \\T TV OF (II li 1ST. 137 

11 Thou shah make li is soul an offer d :** M My 

soul is exceeding sorrowing even unto death.' 1 The 

Scriptures in speaking of the efficacy of the sufli 
of Christ for the remission of sins are in proof of the 
manhood of Christ; instance the following examples, 
Heb. ii. 14: "Forasmuch, then, as the children are 
partakers of flesh and blood, he also himself likewise 
took part of the same ; that through death he might de- 
stroy him that hath the power of death," &c. Here the 
power of Christ's death is set forth ; it is the death of 
one who partook of flesh and blood. But some unbe- 
lievers say Christ only took part of " flesh and blood," 
that is, he took a body like ours, but not a soul, his di- 
vinity is instead of a soul. Surely they cannot derive 
such a conclusion from the above text, for the reverse is 
the truth. " As the children are partakers of flesh and 
blood, he also himself likewise," like the children, "took 
part of the same flesh and blood." He did not take our 
sinful infirmity, or original depravity, but he took our 
nature, or "the seed of Abraham." Heb. ii. 16. But, 
whoever heard of a being thus dying? as it is said, 
Colos. i. 14: "In whom we have redemption through 
his blood, even the forgiveness of sins," and "that 
through death he might destroy him that hath the power 
of death," and still have no soul. Can a human body 
exist without a soul ? Can a being of flesh, and blood, 
and intelligence, have an existence without a soul 1 Or 
can the body suffer without a soul? Did not the Saviour 
exclaim that his "soul was exceeding sorrowful, even 



138 HUMANITY OF CHRIST. 

unto death . ? " " Now it is plain that the sufferer and the 
Saviour are the same person. The man might suffer, 
but suffering could not enable the man to save." This 
suffering man was sustained by the divinity, which is 
one in personal unity with that which suffered, and it 
is this divinity and humanity which constitutes that 
" Great High Priest" of our profession. 

But, how can any man deny that Christ possessed a 
human soul, with such plain Scriptures before him, with- 
out joining issue with the Scriptures? Certainly he 
cannot. But are not some Scriptures expressly clear in 
applying a soul and heart to God as an infinite spirit? 
Hence may not all the Scriptures that speak of God and 
Christ be explained in this sense? We answer, by no 
means, because such explanation would be absurd. 

While we grant that the figure called Anthropopathy, 
a species of metaphor in which the powers or members 
of human beings are ascribed to God, hence that infinite 
spirit is said to have eyes, Psalm xi. 4; Heb. iv. 13; 
ears, Psalm xxxi. 22 ; " thou heardst the voice of my 
supplications," — Psalm viii. 3; "When I consider thy 
heavens the work of thy fingers" — Exo. xv. 6; "Thy 
right hand, O Lord, is become glorious in power." 
Here are eyes, ears, fingers, hand, ascribed to God : still 
more, he is represented to " repent, — and it grieved him 
at his heart" Gen. vi. 6. Again, " Mine heart is turn- 
ed within me, my repentings are kindled together." 
Hosea xi. 8. Though all these things are ascribed to 
that infinite spirit, called God, nevertheless none of these 



m m v\i n 09 I BBDT. 

positively affirm kbit the infinite spirit ■ in posses- 
sion of a soul, ami the Scripturefl intend do Bach thing; 
so it is a casuistry unworthy of attention] to try to set 

forth, that the Scriptures which affirm thai Chris! hai a 
soul are applied only figuratively: no such thing can be 
prove* or credited For the blessed Saviour isa sum 
of sorrow, "the man whoso nam.: is the Branch," > 
vi. 12; "Since by man come death, by man camealsc 
the resurrection of the dead," 1 Cor. xv. 21; verse 47: 
" The first man is of the earth, earthy ; the second man 
is the Lord from heaven." " After me cometh a 
which is preferred before me; for he was before me." 
John i. 30. M A man that] is called Jesus, made clay," 
&c. John ix. 11. "Jesus of Nazareth, a man approved 
of God among you :" Acts ii. 22. These Scriptures suf- 
ficiently prove that Jesus Christ is "very man." There 
is no rational idea that can possibly exist of a human 
living being having a body without a soul. But, be- 
yond all doubt and controversy, every rational being 
must conclude from the Scriptures, that " the man that is 
called Jesus" who "increased in wisdom and stature," 
Luke ii. 52, must necessarily possess both body and soul : 
for he increased in stature. This applies to his body un- 
doubtedly, as every one must believe this from such a 
host of evidence. We shall make one remark on 
Christ's increasing in wisdom, and close this point of the 
subject. To those who affirm that the Saviour had no 
soul, we ask in what sense did he " increase in wise 
if his Deity or Godhead made up, and took the place of 



140 HUMAjNITY OF CHRIST. 

a soul in Christ, how could that Divinity increase in 
wisdom, if you allow that the Godhead was infinite in 
holiness and wisdom? for without this, there could not be 
a God at all. If so. how did the Saviour increase in 
wisdom? To this question there can be no valid answer : 
all the intrigue and subtilty of infidelity cannot answer 
it satisfactorily. Then the fact must be granted, that 
Jesus Christ is truly man, having a real body and'a ra- 
tional soul: and all the Scriptures which mention his 
sufferings and death, or indicate his inferiority in any 
sense, are in proof of his real humanity. 

2nd Class of Scriptures sustains the following propo- 
sition: — "Jesus Christ is the very unoriginated God." 

" That all men should honor the Son, even as they 
honor the Father. He that honoreth not the Son, hon- 
oreth not the Father which hath sent him, 5 ' John v. 23. 
By this Scripture we are under obligation to give the 
same respect or worship to Jesus Christ as to the Father. 
But in an examination of the nature of religious wor- 
ship, it will be found that the Father's honor must ne- 
cessarily be the faithful homage of the whole heart, and 
this in the supreme sense. Then if Christ be less than 
the eternal God, it would be idolatry to serve him. And 
if he is to receive equal worship with the Father, he 
must be co-equal in the sense of supreme divinity, so that 
the principles of true religious honor must be in propor- 
tion to the excellence of the object of worship; hence it 
is impossible to give the same homage to a being of less 
excellence that we give to a being of greater excellenca 



ra \m pi 09 < rat 1 11 

It follows B08 ChnV 

the Father, coi - y h«- uM be tin 

God. And we ask if there in finite 

than the following in i ith( rG 

John i. 1. "Ei mpzjj ft ?.oyo$ xai o toyof ri rfpo* tm 0*w, 

xai <deo$ rv o Xoyoj." Tllisapprai r than OUT 

translation. And in &>///, the language is too definite to 
be misunderstood. Again, Col. ii. 9 ; -For in him 
(Christ) dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily ;" 
"By the Godhead or Deity, esotr$, we are to under- 
stand the state or being of the divine natv n ; and by 
the fulness of that Deity, the infinite attributes essential 
to such a nature. Bodily, Swjuartxwj, signifies truly, re- 
ally; in opposition to typically, figuratively. There 
was a symbol of the divine presence in the Hebrew tab- 
emaele, and in the Jewish temple; but in the body of 
Christ the Deity, with all its plenitude oi attributes, 
dwelt really and substantially, for so the word somatikos 
means : and so it was understood by the ancient Greek 
fathers, as is fully shown by Suicer, in his Thcso 
under the word.'"* 

Consequently, as the Godhead dwelt bodily in Christ, 
so he is necessarily the unoriginated God. 

;; From these two classes of Scripture, two different 
classes of men have drawn two different conclusions. 
The Deist, finding that these passages declare two differ- 
ent things, has determined that the Scriptures contradict 
each other, From the very same premises the Arian 

*Dr. A. Clark's Com. 



142 HUMANITY OF CHRIST. 

has determined that the Scriptures (being consistent,) 
Jesus Christ is not God, though the Scriptures seem to 
say so. Hence they make many efforts to explain away 
the force of these Scriptures. But neither of these con- 
clusions is correct, or even unavoidable, as will appear 
from the 

3rd " Class of Scriptures sustaining the following 
proposition : — Substantial divinity and real humanity are 
combined in the person of Jesus Christ." 

This is a proposition very clearly expressed in the 
Scriptures, though it appears to have been neglected by 
readers generally, by all particularly who deny the di- 
vinity of Christ. We come at once to present a few 
texts in proof of the above proposition, Isa. vii. 14: " Be- 
hold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a Son, and shall 
call his name Immanuel.'" Compare this with Matt. i. 
23 : "And they shall call his name Immanuel, which 
being interpreted is God with us;" God in human 
nature. The word Immanu, with us, el God, or the 
mighty God with us, not in the sense of divine presence, 
for this text is addressed to mankind. This is the fact be- 
yond contradiction, a fact, we suppose, that all admit. 
But if it be in the sense of divine presence, and universal 
in its application, of course then it must apply to devils, 
as well as to men and angels, which makes this text 
superfluous. And of course if so applied, it is as advan- 
tageous to devils as men, which is absurd. Hence the 
true meaning then is, God with us, taking our nature 
upon him to redeem us from u all iniquity." 



HUMANITY or CHRIST. 143 

Again: Rom. i. 3, 4: "Concerning Jesua Christ. 
which was made of the seed of David according to the 
flesh (hxsi is his humanity,) and declared to be the 

Son of God according to the spirit of holiness," (HBRI 
is his divinity.) Thus we see hoth joined in th< 

son of Jesus Christ. Again : Rom. ix. 5. " Of whom, 
as concerning the flesh, Christ came, (here is his hu- 
manity,) who is God over all, blessed for ever." Here 
is his divinity. These are a few of the many Scriptures 
which so clearly support the proposition, Jesus Christ 
is very God and very man. 

" In the controversy on this subject, it is universally 
allowed, that if the above proposition could be established, 
the essential divinity of Jesus Christ must of course be 
acknowledged. Now, gentle reader, peruse again the 
above Scriptures, and ask your own reason if they do 
not make out clearly the proposition. Yes, if there be 
any one truth more clearly revealed than another, it is 
this — Jesus Christ is the God of the Bible. 

Hence we see the Scriptures that say Christ is man 
are true ; and those which set him forth as God are true 
also; the third class of Scriptures shows he is both God 
and man. Consequently all objections brought against 
his inferiority are easily refuted, as all such Scriptures go 
to prove he was man. When " such passages as are 
quoted under the second class are produced, showing 
Jesus Christ is God, by what means can their force be 
avoided? None has ever yet found out a reasonable 
answer. Let the above division of the Scriptures be obser- 



144 HUMANITY OF CHRIST. 

ved, and all will be dissolved, and this truth will rest with 
eternal conviction on every mind, Jesus Christ is the 
very unoriginated God"* 

It is unnecessary to dwell here much longer, in order 
to refute the new styled errors that may rise up in these 
days of much inventions — for the reason they cannot 
have much influence. We trust that in the foregoing 
pages, the errors of the sundry species of Unitarians 
have received, in some sense their merited reward, in 
truth and righteousness. 

It will be understood by the reader, that all the unbe- 
lievers of the essential Divinity of our Saviour are refu- 
ted under the generic term of Vnitarianism. 

As Jesus Christ is the divine Son of God ; as he was 
"sent" by the Father, and "returned" to the Father ; He 
distinguished himself from the Father both in his divine 
and human natures, saying, as to the former, " I and my 
Father are one," and to the latter, *'My Father is 
greater than I." If there be any meaning at all in his 
declaration, "that no man knoweth the Son but the 
Father, and no man knoweth the Father but the Son," 
words which cannot, by any possibility, be spoken of an 
official distinction, or of an emanation or operation, then 
all these passages prove a real personality, and are in- 
capable of being explained by a " model one." The er- 
rors of every species of Unitarianism are chased through 
all their changeful transformations, and they have no 
good reason for their hypothesis. The unbelievers of 

*See Dr. Durbin's Sermon. 



bum uon of ciiKi 146 

the BQpreme divinity of our Lord .1. mis Chris( o.inn ,• 

well boast of their sufferings lor lus holy n:iinc: they 
• had a martyr in their ranks, and it is rery likely 
they never will have That, while the believers in the ' 

Jesus Christ have had the honors of martyrdom, hfl 
unbelievers of Christ's supreme divinit illy, never 

had much else than a zeal for their opinions. The da- 
niers of the Son have not honored the Father; save 
where involuntary ignorance was joined with pure in- 
tention. We see no hope of salvation for them on any 
other foundation. Consequently, they have never, in 
general, borne that lucid testimony for the Lord Jesus 
Christ, that the true believers in his eternal Godhead 
have done. Therefore they have escaped persecution 
to the death, while the true believers have suffered 
the fires of the stake and ascended to heaven in the flames 
of martyrdom, crying as they passed the confines of 
this, and as they neared the borders of the eternal world. 
Hosanna to the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Ghost : 
while greeting angels with the lutes of heaven, in tones 
of Eolian sweetness welcome those martyred spirits to 
the bosom of Abraham, to the throne of God. 

We shall close our remarks on this chapter with one 
thought more, that is, the mediatorial character of our 
Lord Jesus Christ. In this character, Christ dwells at 
the right hand of the Father in heaven. In possessing 
absolute divinity, he has access to God the Father, in 
behalf of mankind. On the other hand, Jesus has access 
to man, having satisfied the demands of the moral law, 
13 



146 HUMANITY OF CHRIST. 

In this way, the adorable Saviour reconciles the fallen 
heart to God, by removing the "enmity," without in- 
fringing on the moral agency of the heart. Is there a 
possibility for any being to mediate for mankind, if that 
being could not manifest mercy. Man could not show 
himself mercy ; the pure law could not, it demanded the 
life of the rebel ; God could not, for his law was violated 
and demanded penal satisfaction. Hence Jesus, only by 
his death, could mediate mercifully, after paying the 
demands of the law. For Jesus, only, can be "touched 
with the feeling of our infirmities," and hereby mediate 
for man. Hence, it was requisite that our mediator pos- 
sess absolute divinity, and complete humanity to become 
a mediator in the court of heaven. Again : these two 
distinct natures of Christ, must necessarily remain dis- 
tinct ; the divine cannot be absorbed by the human, for 
this would be the lesser receiving the greater. On the 
other hand, if the divine could absorb the human, this 
would be a strange compound, and God would not be a 
spirit, an infinite, indivisible essence : hence this cannot 
be. Nevertheless the two natures of Christ are perma- 
nently united in the person of the Son of God. Jesus 
says, John iii. 13: "'And no man hath ascended up to 
heaven, but he that came down from heaven, even the 
Sen of man, which is in heaven." Here he addresses 
Nicodemus, in his bodily presence, but affirms at the same 
time, that he is in heaven. Thence here is a distinction 
of his divinity and humanity and a union of both, which 
form the Mediator. Very God and very man. 



CHAP T E B VII 
a Christ made a Propitiators Ba< rih< i 

EVERY KAN, WHICH is FARTHER PROOT 01 
ESSENTIAL DlVIMTY. 

This chapter will close our remarks on the cha 
ter of our Lord Jesus Christ. 

The unbelievers in his essential divinity, deny that lr 
made a propitiatory sacrifice for the world. That he 
made such a sacrifice is proven from the Holy Scrip- 
tures — a proof of which will corroborate the divinity oi 
his character and mission. 

To place this subject in its proper light, we must con- 
sider the Old and New Testaments as the history of 
man's redemption. The Jewish government was a 
theocracy. God was their chief magistrate. i: The 
Lord was their king, the Lord was their law-giver: 
the Lord was their judge." " The elders of Israel 
came to Samuel, and said, Make us a king, to judge us 
like all the nations. The Lord said unto Samuel. 
They have not rejected thee, but they have rejected me, 
that I should not reign over them," 1 Sam. viii. 4, 7. 
Gqtf was their king. " The Lord his God was with 
them, and the shout of a king was among them," Num. 



148 CHRIST A SACRIFICE FOR SIN. 

xxiii. 21. The tabernacle was the place of his 
court, and the holy of holies was his pavilion ; here the 
king resided, and manifested his royal presence by the 
Shechinah ; here, as law-giver, he was consulted ; and 
as judge, he administered justice. 

God not only gave them civil, but ceremonial laws ; 
and enforced on them profound reverence for his gra- 
cious majesty, and external purity. And in order to 
perpetuate this, priests and Levites were appointed, as 
intermediary officers, to execute his will, and receive 
the offerings of the people, and present them to their 
sovereign. 

" Those offerings were of two kinds : some were 
eucharistical,* and were offered in acknowledgment of 
benefits received ; others were piacular, and were offered 
to avert impending evil, or to regain forfeited blessings. 
This is an important distinction, which is preserved 
through the whole of the Levitical law, and is particu- 
larly noticed by an apostle : ' For every high priest 
taken from among men, is ordained for men in things 
pertaining to God, that he may offer both gifts and sac- 
rifices for sins,' Heb. v. 1. 

" The gifts which the apostle here mentions, were 
undoubtedly the meat offerings, the drink offerings, the 
offering of the first fruits, the thank offerings, the free 
will offerings. From these gifts, ' the sacrifices for 
sins 7 are always to be particularly distinguished, as their 
nature and design were essentially different. And %\\$ 

*The sacrament of thanksgiving. 



riiitisT \ svi Kirici: iok sin. I !'.» 

difference renders thai comparison which, fbt \h 
of reducing the ( sin offering 1 to the stai 
own opinion, the Bocinians make between them, alto- 
gether inadmissible. No proof of what was, or what 
was not the design of tl can afford an] 

evidence concerning the design of the sacrifici 
(Hare.) 

1. A propitiation for sin, is a sacrifice to expiafe 
guilt of sin, in such a manner as to avert the punish- 
ment from the sinner. Such were the sin offerings of 
the Levitical law. 

Impurities occasioned by neglect of duty, &c, exclu- 
ded the subject from the congregation and its privileges. 
A breach of the civil law was followed by the same 
consequences. An offence against a brother was par- 
donable when restitution was made, as it was an offence 
against the legislator. In all such cases, " all things 
under the law were purged with blood, and without 
shedding of blood was no remission," Heb. ix. 22. For 
these reasons were instituted the sin offerings, by which 
the impure were absolved. 

The Levitical law of sacrifices exhibits the nature 
and design of sin offerings. This is plain from Lev. 
iv. 13 — 21 : •* If the whole congregation of Israel sin 
through ignorance, and the thing be hid from the eyes 
of the assembly, and they have done somewhat against 
any of the commandments of the Lord, concerning 
tilings which should not be done, and are guilty ; when 
the sin w T hich they have sinned against it is known, then 



150 CHRIST A SACRIFICE FOR SIN. 

the congregation shall offer a young bullock for the 
sin, and bring him before the tabernacle of the congre- 
gation. And the elders of the congregation shall lay 
their hands upon the head of the bullock before the 
Lord; and the bullock shall be killed before the Lord. 
And the priest that is anointed shall bring of the bul- 
lock's blood to the tabernacle of the congregation ; and 
the priest shall dip his finger in some of the blood, and 
sprinkle it seven times before the Lord, even before the 
Veil. And he shall put some of the blood upon the 
horns of the altar, which is before the Lord, that is in 
the tabernacle of the congregation, and shall pour out 
all the blood at the bottom of the altar of the burnt 
offering, which is at the door of the tabernacle of the 
congregation: and he shall take all his fat from him, 
and burn it upon the altar. And he shall do with the 
bullock as he did with the bullock for a sin offering, so 
shall he do with this : and the priest shall make an 
atonement for them, and it shall be forgiven them. And 
he shall carry forth the bullock : it is a sin offering for 
the congregation." 

Here it is obvious that sin was the occasion of the 
offering, and that for which it was offered. 

" The life of the flesh is in the blood ; and I have given 
it to you upon the altar, to make an atonement for your 
souls," Lev. xvii. li. It is required that the blood, in 
which is the life of the flesh, shall be sprinkled before the 
Lord, and put on the horns of the altar within the taberna- 
cle, and thus an atonement is made, and the sin pardoned. 



( BUST v - \(i!iin i: mi{ hv 1 .". 1 

The plain meaning of atone is, "to make n paration, 
amends, oi satisfaction, for an ofl! oce or a crime."* 
In the above nement was mad< 

God to man. This is rational from the bctfl thai 

had not offended nun, but nun had offended Q 

whom the sin offering was to be offen d. And h 
God was offended, God was to be reconciled." A 
It was not God who presented the sin offering to the 
congregation, but the congregation who presented it to 
God. This was the condition that God proposed to be 
merciful to them. 

The '-'peace offerings were tokens" of peace and 
" mutual friendship. The offerer was allowed to eat a 
part of the offering, in the presence of the Lord," 
Lev. vii. 15. 

Again: When the congregation had sinned, God 
permitted them not to enjoy " the privileges of his pe- 
culiar people ; whereas, when the sin offering had been 
presented, he did permit them." Hence we see that for- 
giveness was not on the part of the congregation, but God. 

If it be objected, " that the immutable God cannot 
change, as the explanation of atonement, as given above, 
suggests," we answer, In the immutability of God we 
believe most certainly, but " dare not attribute to him 
the immutability of a stone." Jehovah cannot change 
"in what he is," yet he can undoubtedly " change in 
what he does. He can at one time be angry with us, 
and at another time turn away his anger," both as a sec- 

* Webster's Die. 



152 CHRIST A SACRIFICE FOR SIN. 

ular governor, and as the God, who, being gracious and 
merciful, can forgive iniquity, transgressions and sin. 
Again : In the " Christian economy," and under the 
government of him who is " a great king in all the 
earth," Jesus Christ is ordained the " High Priest of 
our profession," Heb. iii. 2, infinitely greater than Aaron 
or his sons. " We have a great High Priest, that is 
passed into (or through) the heavens, Jesus, the Son of 
God," Heb. iv. 14. u We have such a High Priest, 
who is set on the right hand of the throne of the Majes- 
ty in the heavens ; a minister of the sanctuary and of 
the true tabernacle, which the Lord pitched, and not 
man," Heb. viii. 1, 2. " Christ is not entered into the 
holy places made with hands, which are the figures of 
the true ; but into heaven itself, now to appear in the 
presence of God for us," Heb. ix. 24. The priests who 
" offer gifts according to the law ; who serve unto the 
example and shadow of heavenly things; but now hath 
he obtained a more excellent ministry, by how much 
also he is the mediator of a better covenant, which is 
established upon better promises," Heb. viii. 3 — 6. "But 
Christ being come an high priest of good things to 
come, by a greater and more perfect tabernacle, not 
made with hands, that is to say, not of this building; 
neither by the blood of goats and calves, but by his own 
blood, he entered in once into the holy place, having 
obtained eternal redemption for us" Heb. ix. 11, 12. 

In these texts the reader will find a continual " com- 
parison between the priesthood, ministry, and sacrifices 



( -wrist \ s\i iniK i: 101: HM 

of the Jewish institution and the 

design of which is to show thai the former if 

of the tatter, bat that iho latter infini la the for- 

mer. Mi Whereas, the Jewish high priests were I i 

i: gifts and sacrifices for sins." 15ut Christ offered only 

one sacrifice for sins. This will lead us to notice : 

As the Jewish church had her priests who made 
atonement for the sins of " their souls," so Christ is the 
High Priest of the world, who, by his blood, obtained 
eternal redemption for us. 

If the " congregation of Israel sin through ignorance, 
and have done somewhat against any of the command- 
ments of the Lord, and are guilty, the priest shall make 
an atonement for them, and it shall be forgiven them," 
Lev. iv. 

That Jesus Christ was made an offering for sin. is 
plain from the following Scriptures: " When thou shalt 
make his soul an offering for sin," Isa. liii. 10. M He 
hath made him to be amartian, a sin offering for us," 
2 Cor. v. 21. " Who needeth not daily as those high 
priests to offer up sacrifice, first for his own sins, and 
then for the people's: for this he did once when he of- 
fered up himself," Heb. vii. 27. M Christ died for our 
sins," 1 Cor. xv, 3. " Christ hath once suffered for 
sins," 1 Pet. iii. 18. Christ u offered one sacrifice for sins," 
Heb. x. 12. 

These and other Scriptures represent our sins as the 

* Hare on Socin., pp. 1C9. 

14 



154 CHRIST A SACRIFICE FOR SIN. 

" impulsive cause of the death of Christ." Our sins de- 
served punishment ; Christ " was delivered for our of- 
fences," Rom. iv. 25. " In all which places we have either 
vrisp or step*, with the genitive case. But Socinus main- 
tains, that in all these places a final and not an impulsive 
cause is intended. He even goes so far as to say, that 
the Latin pro and the Greek v7ttp never denote an im- 
pulsive, but always a final cause. Many examples 
prove the latter assertion to be untrue. For both uper 
and peri are used to signify no less an impulsive than a 
final cause. The Gentiles are said to praise God uper 
eleous for his mercy, Rom. xv. 9. Paul says, thanks 
are given uper qfiav, for us, Eph. i. 16. And vrcep 
rtavtav for all, Eph. v. 20. Great is my glorying for 
you, vrtsp vfiav, 2 Cor. vii. 4 ; ix. 2 ; and xii. 5. In all 
these places pro, or vrtsp, does not signify a final, but an 
impulsive cause. So when Christ is said to have suf- 
fered and died for sins, the subject will not allow us, as 
Socinus wishes, to understand a final cause. Hence, 
also, as the Hebrew particle id, denotes an antecedent or 
impulsive cause, (see Psalm xxxviii. 9, and many other 
places,) the words of Isaiah liii. cannot be better trans- 
lated, or more agreeably with other Scriptures, than He 
was wounded on account of our transgressions ; he was 
bruised on account of our iniquities. And what can 
Romans, vi. 10, *r k a/*ap*ia art£$av£v, denote, but that 
he died on account of sin?"* It is in this sense that 

* Grotius, by Watson Inst., vol. 2 pp. 108. 



i iikist \ lAommci iok 

Christ ia said to bear our Bint •• Who bis own 
bare our sins in his own body on the tree/ 1 I Pel erii. 
24 — where the apostle eridently quotes from Isaiah 

liii: M He shall bear their iniquities. 91 •• ll<- bore tlic 
sin of many." St. Paul uses the sun.- i \pn BSion, I 
brews i\. 28: "So Christ was once off! red to bear the 

sins o( many." To bear sin in the sense of the Scrip- 
ture, is to bear the punishment of sin. Levit. xxii. 
Ezek. xviii. 20. Again : Isaiah says, " He was wound* d 
for our transgressions ; he ^vas bruised for our iniquities ; 
the chastisement of our peace was upon him ; and with 
his stripes we are healed." Now chastisement is the pun- 
ishment of a fault ; but the suffering person of Avhom the 
prophet speaks, is declared of him to be wholly free from 
transgression ; to be perfectly and emphatically innocent. 
This prophecy is applied to Christ by the apostles, whose 
constant doctrine is the entire immaculateness of their mas- 
ter and Lord. If chastisement, therefore, was laid upon 
Christ, it could not be on account of faults of his own ; his 
sufferings were the chastisement of our faults, the price 
of peace, and his "stripes," another punitive expression, 
were borne by him for our u healing." The only 
course which Socinus and his followers have taken, to 
endeavor to escape the force of this passage, is to render 
the word not chastisement, but affliction ; in answer to 
which, Grotius and subsequent critics have abundantly 
proved that it is used not to signify affliction of any kind, 
but that which has the nature of punishment. 

These passages, therefore, prove a substitution^ a suj- 



156 CHRIST A SACRIFICE FOR SIN. 

fering in our stead. The chastisement of offences was 
laid upon him, in order to our peace : and the offences 
were ours, since they could not be his " who did no sin, 
neither was guile found in his mouth.' 5 The same view 
is presented to us under another and even still more for- 
cible phrase, in the sixth and seventh verses of the same 
chapter : " All we, like sheep, have gone astray ; we 
have turned every one to his own way, and the Lord 
hath laid on him (literally, hath made to meet on him.) 
the iniquity of us all ; it was exacted, and he was made 
answerable." In 2 Cor. v. 21, the apostle uses almost 
the same language : " For he hath made him to be sin 
(a sin offering) for us, who knew no sin : that we might 
be made the righteousness of God in him." The So- 
cinian Improved Version has a note on this passage, so 
obscure that the point is evidently given up in despair. 
St. Paul places "sin" and u righteousness" in opposi- 
tion to each other — " We are made the righteousness of 
God;" that is, are justified and freed from Divine pun- 
ishment ; but in order to this, Christ was "made sin," or 
bore our punishment. There is also another antithesis 
in the apostle's words : God made him, who knew no 
sin, and consequently deserved no punishment, to be sin : 
that is, it pleased him that he should be punished ; but 
Christ was innocent, not only according to human laws, 
but according to the law of God. The antithesis, 
therefore, requires us to understand that he bore the pen- 
alty of that law, and that he bore it in our stead. How 
explicitly the death of Christ is represented in the New 



0HRB1 \ - \< KM l< I 1 OB 

i ■•//'//, which it could nui be in any othei 

way than by h 

is manifl st also from ( tal. iii L9 bath 

redeemed ua from the curse of the 1 
cuiae (an execration) for as, for it it wti 
every one that hangeth on a tr. ■*-." Thr p 
Moses, to which St. .Paul refers, is Deut XXL 22 
u If a man have committed a sin worthy of d 
be put to death, and they hang him on a body 

shall not remain all night upon the tree, but thou 
in any wise bury him that day, for hi that is Im n : 
accursed of God, that thy land be not defiled." This 
infamy was only inflicted upon great offenders, and wa> 
designed to show the light in which the person thu 
posed was viewed by God — he was a curse or ei 
tion. On this, the remarks of Grotius are most forcible 
and conclusive : " Socinus says, that to be an execra- 
tion, means to be under the punishment of execration, 
which is true. For xar'apa everywhere denotes punish- 
ment proceeding from the sanction of law, 2 Peter ii. 
14; Matt. xxv. 41. Socinus also admits, that the cross 
of Christ w r as this cure ; his cross, therefore, had the 
nature of punishment, which is what we maintain 
Perhaps Socinus allows that the cross of Christ was a 
punishment, because Pilate, as a judge, inflicted it ; but 
this does not come up to the intention of the apostle ; 
for, in order to prove that Christ was made obnoxious 
to punishment, he cites Moses, who expressly a 
that whoever hangs on a tree, according to the Divine 



158 CHRIST A SACRIFICE FOR SIN. 

law, is accursed of God ; consequently, in the words of 
the apostle, who cites this place of Moses, and refers it 
to Christ, we must supply the same circumstance, ' ac- 
cursed of GodJ as if he had said Christ was made 
accursed of God, or obnoxious to the highest and most 
ignominious punishment ' for us, that the blessing of 
Abraham might come upon the Gentiles,' &c. For 
when the apostles speak of the sufferings of Christ in 
reference to our good, they do not regard the acts of 
men in them, but the act of God." (De Satisfactione.) 

2. Let us notice more particularly the nature of the 
death of Christ. 

11 We are carried still farther into the real nature and 
design of the death of Christ, by those passages of 
Holy Scripture which connect with the propitiation, 
atonement, reconciliation, and the making peace between 
God and man ; and the more attentively these are con- 
sidered, the more unfounded will the Socinian notion 
appear, which represents the death of Christ as, indi- 
rectly only, a benefit to us, and as saving us from sins 
and their punishment only as it is a motive to repentance 
and virtue." (R. Watson.) 

In the doctrine before us, the wrath turned away is 
the wrath of God. Jesus Christ makes the propitia- 
tion ; this is done by his blood, according to 1 John ii. 2 : 
" And he is the propitiation for our sins." Again, 1 John 
iv. 10: " Herein is love, not that we loved God; but 
that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation 
for our sins." Rom. iii. 25 : " Whom God hath set 



CHKI0T A SACRIFICE i <>r m\. 1.7.) 

forth to be a propitiation through faith in ki$ blood. 11 

" The word used in the two former | om/*o*; 

in the last, aa^^u^. Both are from the \< irb 1X00*0, 
so often used by Greek writ ipresi the act 

a person, who, in some appointed way, tamed away the 

wrath of a Deity; and, therefore, cannot bear tin 
which Socinus would put upon it." When the unbe- 
lievers in the Saviour's essential divinity are pressed on 
this point, and denying that mankind needed a propitia- 
tory sacrifice; the death of Christ was only necessary 
as it was a motive to repentance and a holy life — that is, 
if they believe in holiness in the Scriptural sense at all. 
Hence, they deny the mystery of u God manifested in 
the flesh." We can expect nothing better from them, 
if they be consistent with themselves, than a virtual 
denial of the propitiatory sacrifice of Christ. All un- 
believers in the supreme divinity of Christ, of whatso- 
ever name they may assume, deny original sin, and the 
vicarious atonement of Jesus Christ — whether called 
Socinians, Unitarians, Campbellites, and Newlights, &c. 

There is but little difference between Socinians and 
Unitarians. As the former maintain, ,%i that Jesus Christ 
was a mere man, who had no existence before he was 
conceived by the Virgin Mary," but "he preached the 
truth to mankind, to set before them an example of 
heroic virtue," &c. 

The latter maintain, 1, "That Christ is not truly a 
divine being, but an exalted and pre-eminent pattern of 
human perfection." 



160 CHRIST A SACRIFICE FOR SIN. 

2. That the Scriptures are " not a revelation, but the 
record of a revelation." 

3. That the Sabbath, or Lord's day of Christians, 
under the New Testament, has no connection whatever 
with the ancient Jewish Sabbath ; that although it is to 
be honored by resting from secular business, yet it is not 
to be considered as i( set apart from our common lives 
to religion," nor is it to be regarded as more holy than 
any other day of the week. 

4. That it is doubtful whether soul is a substance or 
a principle separate from the body. 

5. That there are no such spiritual beings as the 
devil, or evil angels. 

6. That the Scriptures do not teach the doctrine of 
eternal punishments to be inflicted upon the wicked.* 

The reader may easily perceive that these two sects 
embrace some tenets nearly alike ; and the Campbell- 
ites, Newlights, and all other lights, but the true lights, 
have nearly the same doctrine touching the Lord Jesus 
Christ, the Holy Ghost, and the piacular atonement. 
Hence, we have called them repeatedly unbelievers, as 
this term seems to embrace them all, even down to Uni- 
versalism, as it appears to be the near kinsman of 
Unitarianism itself. 

Now, to proceed. The apostle to the Ephesians i. 7, 
says: "We have redemption through his blood, the 
remission of sins." Here it appears that it is only 

* Buck's Theological Die. 



chiust v sa( iui mi: ion I<iJ 

through the blood of Christ thai he himself c 

cile US to ( iod. 

Hut will it br said by our opponents that in rind 

ting our idea of Christ's propitiation, we "main 
an implacable being?" By no means. Weall 
" God is love ;" still it is not i inordei 

this, to "assume that he is nothio lias 1 

other attributes that harmonize with his love ? Most 
certainly. Then we do not make Jehovah an implaca- 
ble being, but rather that " God so loved the world, 
that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever be- 
lieveth in him should not perish, but have everlasting 
life," John iii. 16. " He spared not his own Son, but 
delivered him up freely for us all." " Thus God is the 
fountain and first great moving cause of the scheme oi 
recovery and salvation. The question is not whether 
God is love, but whether he is holy and just; whether 
we, his creatures, are under law or not; whether this 
law has any penalty, and whether God, in his rectoral 
character, is bound to execute and uphold that law." 
The justice of God is punitive; if not, his law is a dead 
letter. But it is obvious that his law is punitive ; then 
a violation of his law incurs his anger. God is angry 
with the wicked ; then " a man as a sinner is obnoxious 
to this anger; and so a propitiation becomes necessary 
to turn it away from him." John the Baptist declares, 
that if any man believeth not on the Son of God, u the 
wrath of God abideth upon him." St. Paul declares, 
that " the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against 



162 CHRIST A SACRIFICE FOR SIN. 

all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men." The 
day of judgment, in reference to the ungodly, is said to 
be " the day of wrath ;" fearful inflictions of punish- 
ment shall be the cup of the rebellious. ? All evils which 
history has crowded into the lot of man, appear insig- 
nificant in comparison of banishment from God — sepa- 
ration from the good — public condemnation — torment of 
spirit — " weeping, wailing, and gnashing of teeth" — 
" everlasting destruction" — " everlasting fire." " Let 
men talk ever so much, and eloquently, of the pure be- 
nevolence of God, they cannot abolish the facts recorded 
in the history of human suffering in this world, as the 
effect of transgression ; nor can they discharge these 
fearful communications from the pages of the book of 
God. And if c Jesus who saves us from the wrath to 
come,' that is, from those effects of the wrath of God 
which are to come, then but for him we should have 
been liable to them." " The principle in God, from 
which such effects follow, the Scriptures call wrath; 
and they who deny the existence of wrath in God, deny, 
therefore, the Scriptures. It by no means follows, how- 
ever, that those who thus bow to inspired authority, must 
interpret wrath to be a passion in God ; or that though 
we conclude the awful attribute of his justice to require 
satisfaction, in order to the forgiveness of the guilty, we 
afford reason to any to charge us with attributing venge- 
ful affections to the Divine being."* 

* Watson's Inst., vol. 2, pp. 116. 



ciirist a sa< nun ii worn nor. 169 

3. Again: To those Scriptures winch represent 

Christ as our propitiatory sacrifice, uv will append 
those whicli speak of reconciliation^ and the establish- 
ment of peace between Qod and men, ai the result of his 

death. Col. i. 19— 22: " For it pleased the Father 
that in him should all fullness dwell : and (haying made 
peace through the blood of his cross) by him to tecow 
die all things unto himself; by him, I say, whether 
they be things in earth or things in heaven." Again : 
" For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to 
God by the death of his Son, much more, being recon- 
ciled, we shall be saved by his life. And not only so, 
but we also joy in God, through our Lord Jesus Christ, 
by whom we have now received the atonement." 2 Cor. 
v. 18, 19: "And all things are of God, who hath rc- 
conciled us to himself by Jesus Christ, and hath given us 
the ministry of reconciliation." " The verbs translated 
to reconcile, are xataxkaaao) and artoxata^xacfefw, which 
signify a change from one state to another ; but in 
the passages, connection determines the nature of the 
change to be a change from enmity to friendship." The 
best critics maintain that the term atonement signifies 
propitiation in the proper and sacrificial sense. " The 
word atonement would have been a proper substitute for 
'propitiation? in those passages of the New Testament 
in which it occurs, as being more obvious in its meaning 
to the common reader ; and because the original word 
answers to the Hebrew isd, which is used for the legal 
atonement." And " the effect of the Jewish atonement 



164 CHRIST A SACRIFICE FOR SIN. 

was, that the sins of the persons for whom they were 
offered, were forgiven. Such precisely is the conse- 
quence of the death of Christ." (Hare.) 

This agrees with the prophet : " My righteous ser- 
vant shall justify many, for he shall bear their iniquities," 
Isa. liii. 11. "For this is my blood of the new cove- 
nant, which is shed for many for the remission of sins,' 3 
Matt, xxvi. 28. "We have redemption through his 
blood, the forgiveness of sins," Eph. i. 7. The bearing 
of iniquities, his blood which was shed for the remission 
of sinSj redemption through his blood, fyc, are terms 
exhibiting the foundation of reconciliation, the only 
means of reconciliation and peace. But these terms 
necessarily suppose a previous state of hostility between 
God and man, which is reciprocal. 

This hostility between God and men is sometimes call- 
ed enmity ; but the oppugners of this doctrine, the doctrine 
of atonement, urge that there is no such affection in the 
divine Being, therefore, reconciliation in Scripture does 
not mean a reconciliation of God to man, but of man to 
God. But, with what poor grace can Socinians and all 
other unbelievers in the Deity of Christ, and the fall of 
man, make this turn in the argument? — when in fact 
they deny the fall of man ; and argue his natural inno- 
cence, that " original sin is a scholastic chimera." In 
the face of this, how can they maintain that the Scrip- 
tures teach a reconciliation not of God to man, but of man 
to God. If man be a naturally innocent being, where is 



christ v BiLcmtnoE fob m 

the enmity on his pail to I kxM I id the infidi I bn 

hood answer this. 

The truth is. man is an i 
mind is enmity against Gkxij fbi it is not subject to the 

law of God, neither indeed can be." Uoin. viii. i 

"For if, when we were enemies, we wen led to 

God by the death of his Son:" Rom. v. 10. II- n 
sec plainly that man is naturally an enemy of t tod, but 
is reconciled " by the death of his Son." So Christ 
made " peace" between God and man, by his death. But 
what arc we to understand by being- enemies to God? It 
means, because man violated his law, he has fallen under 
the "divine judicial displeasure of God," accounted an 
enemy and subject to be punished as such. Here it is 
obvious, that this u enmity, in the sense of malignity and 
the sentiment of hatred, is added to this relation in the 
case of man; but it is no part of the relation itself; it is 
rather the cause of it." But according to the reasoning 
of Socinians, and others, God is so good, he cares not, 
particularly, about the violations of his law, though sin- 
ners do violate it; He remains continually a Being of 
unchanging love toward them ; and needs not to be re- 
conciled to them. But they must admit that the term 
"reconciliation," means something, and they have it to 
mean the reconciliation of man to God, taken, we sup- 
pose in the sense of that which was really effected by the 
death of Christ, and still try to maintain man's natural 
innocency. What nonsense ! Why not throw away 
the Bible at once? And not only so, but, true reason 



166 CHRIST A SACRIFICE FOR SIN. 

also. They admit that Christ died for men, and hereby he 
made a reconciliation for them, but, nevertheless men 
are naturally innocent, and God is so loving, yes, un- 
changeable in his love, that he cannot need any recon- 
ciliation. Then we ask the reader, what shall they do 
with the reconciliation made by the death of our Lord 
Jesus Christ? 

4. After all, some oftheSocinians assert, "that reconcilia- 
tion means no more than laying aside our enmity to God." 
The contrary may be shown from various express pas- 
sages. For instance, Rom. v. 10: "For if, when we 
were enemies, we were reconciled to God." The act 
of reconciliation is here ascribed to God, and not to men. 
"But if this reconciliation consisted in the laying aside 
our own enmity, the act would be ours alone ; and, far- 
ther, that it could not be the laying aside of our enmity, is 
clear from the text, which speaks of reconciliation while 
we were yet enemies. i God was in Christ reconciling 
the world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses 
unto them:' 2 Cor. v. 19. Here, the manner of this 
reconciliation is expressly said to be not our laying 
aside our enmity, but the non-imputation of it to us by 
God, in other words, the pardoning our offences and re- 
storing us to favor. The promise on God's part, to do 
this, is expressive of his previous reconciliation to the 
world by the death of Christ ; for our actual reconcilia- 
tion is distinguished from this by what follows, and hath 
1 committed to us the ministry of reconciliation,' by vir- 
tue of which all men were, by the apostles, entreated and 



Gran I s\i Kirin: i or SIN. 167 

besought to be reconciled to God. The reason, too, of 
this reconciliation of( tod to tin- world, by virtue of which 
he promise! oot to impute sin, is grounded by the 
tie, in the las' verse ol the chapter, not upon the laying 
aside of enmity by men, hut upon the sacrifice of ( 'hrist: 

— c For he hath made him to he sin (a sin offei in. 
us, who knew no sin, that we might be made the right- 
eousness of God in him.' Eph. ii. 16, — 'And that lie 
might reconcile both unto God in one body by the cross, 
having slain the enmity thereby.' Here the act of re- 
conciling is attributed to Christ. Man is not spoken of 
as reconciling himself to God, but Christ is said to recon- 
cile Jews and Gentiles together, and both to God, £ by 
his cross.' Thus, says the apostle, < he is our peace ;' 
but in what manner is the peace effected % { Not, in the 
first instance, subduing the enmity of man's heart, but by 
removing the enmity of the law.' Having abolished 
through its fulfilment in Christ 'the enmity, even the 
law of commandments."' 

" The ceremonial law only is here, probably, meant ; 
for by its abolition through its fulfilment in Christ, the 
enmity between Jews and Gentiles was taken away ; but 
still it was not only necessary to reconcile Jews and 
Gentiles together, but to 'reconcile both unto God.' 
This he did by the same act; abolishing the ceremonial 
law by becoming the antetype of all its sacrifices ; and 
thus, by the sacrifice of himself, effecting the reconcilia- 
tion of all to God, ' slaying the enmity by his cross,' taking 
away whatever hindered the reconciliation of the guilty 



168 CHRIST A SACRIFICE FOR SIN. 

to God, which, as we have seen, was not enmity and 
hatred to God in the human mind only, but that judicial 
hostility and variance which separated God and man as 

judge and criminal c When 

we speak of the necessity of Christ's atonement, in order 
to man's forgiveness, we are told that we represent the 
Deity as implacable; when we rebut that by showing 
that it was his very placability, his boundless and ineffa- 
ble love to men, which sent his Son into the world to 
die for the sins of mankind, they rejoin with their lead- 
ers, Socinus and Cerellius, that then ' God was reconcil- 
ed before he sent his Son, and that, therefore, Christ did 
not die to reconcile God to us.' The answer plainly is, 
that in this objection, they either mean that God had, 
from the placability and compassion of his nature, deter- 
mined to be reconciled to offenders upon the sending his 
Son, or that he was actually reconciled when our Lord 
was sent. The first is what we contend for, and is in no 
wise inconsistent with the submission of our Lord to 
death, since that was in pursuance of the merciful ap- 
pointment and decree of the Father ; and the necessary 
medium by which this placability of God could honor- 
ably and consistently show itself in actual reconciliation, 

or the pardon of sin The reconciliation 

of God to man is throughout, a conditional one, and, as 
in all conditional processes of this kind, it has three stages. 
The first is when the party offended is disposed to admit 
of terms of agreement, which, in God, is matter of pure 
grace and favor ; the second is when he declares his ac- 



ciikist \ BA( i:ii t( i: FOB 169 

ceptance of the mediation ofa third person, and that he 
is so satisfied with what he has dune in order to r. that 
ho appoints it to be announced to the offender, thai if the 
breach continues, the fault lies wholly upon himself; the 
third is when the offender accepts of the terms 
ment which are offered to him, submits, and u 
into favor." (R. Watson.) 

5. Again, it is still more clear, that Christ made re- 
conciliation for us, &c if we consider the Scriptures 
still farther. " Upon the death and sufferings of Christ. 
God declares that he is so satisfied with what Christ hath 
done and suffered in order to the reconciliation between 
himself and us, that he now publishes remission of sins 
to the world upon those terms which the Mediator hath 
declared by his own doctrine and the apostles he sent to 
preach it ; but because remission of sins doth not imme- 
diately follow upon the death of Christ, without any sup- 
position of the performance of the conditions which arc 
required of us." (Stillingfleet.) 

6. To those Scriptures which treat of our reconcilia- 
tion to God by the death of Christ, we add those which 
speak of c: redemption" either by employing that word 
or others of like import By redemption, those that de- 
ny the atonement made by Christ try to understand de- 
liverance merely, regarding only the effect and studi- 
ously putting out of sight the cause so far as they can: 
which is a plain prevarication of Scriptural truth. But 
to the Scriptures on this point, 1 Cor. vi. 19, 20: " And 
ye are not your own, for ye are bought with a price." 

15 



170 CHRIST A SACRIFICE FOR SIN. 

1 Peter i. 18, 19: "For as much as ye know that ye 
were not redeemed with corruptible things, as silver and 
gold, from your vain conversation, &c, but with the pre- 
cious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and 
without spot." Rom. iii. 24. "Being justified freely by 
his grace, through the redemption that is in Christ 
Jesus." Gal. iii. 13. "Christ hath redeemed us from 
the cur5e of the law, being made a curse for us ; for it is 
written, cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree.' 7 
Eph. i. 7: " In whom we have redemption through his 
blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of 
his grace." It is very obvious that these texts refute the 
notion of a mere deliverance, whether we take it in the 
sense of sin, or punishment, or both. The English word 
redeem signifies to buy back %vtpvu, to redeem, and 
arto'Kvtpioais, redemption, are both used to signify the act 
of freeing a captive, by paying hvtpov, a ransom or re- 
demption price. Hence in the above and other passages, 
it is said " we have redemption through his blood, the 
forgiveness of sins," redemption from "the curse of the 
law;" deliverance from the power of Satan; from death 
and future " wrath," by Jesus Christ's death, which he 
endured in our stead. Matthew xx. 28: The Son of 
man came "to give his life a ransom (%vtpov : ) for ma- 
ny." 1 Tim. ii. 6: "Who gave himself a ransom 
(avtavtpov) for all." Again, says St. John, Rev. v. 9 : 
" Thou wast slain, and hast redeemed us to God, 
(qyopaaas, hast purchased us) by thy blood." " The lu 
iron, in the case of man, is the blood of Christ; and our 



CHEST \ 3A0RIFH I i 01 

redemption ia Dot a commutation of a pecuniary 
for a person, but a commutation of the sufferings of one 
person in the stead of another, which sufii ring 
punishment, in order to satisfaction, is a valuable con- 
sideration, and, therefore, a price for the redemption o( 
man out oi' the hands of Satan, and from all the I 
quences of that captivity.* 

Hence we see that the death of Christ, in the Scriptures 
is exhibited as the price of our redemption. Against this 
doctrine an objection has been urged from Socinus to 
Dr. Priestly, and is thus stated by the latter: "Th< 
Scriptures uniformly represent God as our universal 
parent, pardoning* sinners frc cly, that is from his natural 
goodness and mercy, whenever they repent and reform 
their lives. All the declarations of Divine mercy an 
made, without reserve and limitation, to the truly peni- 
tent, through all the books of Scripture, without the 
most distant hint of any regard being had to the suffer- 
ings or merit of any being whatever." Here Dr. Priestly 
restricts the love of God, as it is only "to the truly peni- 
tent:' Then God has no love or mercy only for the truly 
penitent, would be the conclusion of this logic. Hence 
God, according to the Dr. has respect to a ;: consideration 
foreign to his goodness and mercy." 

"For, if forgiveness of sin can only be accounted a 
free gift by being dependent upon no condition, and sub- 
ject to no restrictions, it follows, that the repentance and 
amendment of the offender himself are no more to be re- 
garded than the sufferings and merit of any other being : 



172 CHRIST A SACRIFICE FOR SIN. 

and, consequently, that all sinners, without reserve and 
limitation, have an equal claim of pardon, whether they 
repent or not. If, to avoid this consequence, it be said 
that God is free to choose the objects to whom he will 
show mercy, and to impose upon them such restrictions, 
and require of them such qualifications as he thinks fit; 
it may then, be with equal reason, asserted, that he is 
also free to dispense his mercy for such reasons and by 
such methods as he, in his wisdom, shall determine to be 
most conducive to his own glory and the good of his 
creatures, and there is no reason whatever to be given 
why a regard to the sufferings or merit of another per- 
son should more destroy the freeness of the gift, than 
the requisition of certain qualifications in the object him- 
self' 5 

The sum of the matter is, it is altogether with the 
ever blessed God whether he forgive sin on this or the 
other condition, as it is his free gilt and unmerited love; 
for the showing mercy to the guilty, by any method, 
was a matter in which the Almighty was perfectly free. 

Dr. Priestly rests his impudent assumption on Ro- 
mans iii. 24: " Being justified freely by his grace, 
through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus," Here 
he builds his argument on the term freely] but explains 
not the character of redemption, nor gives the apostle's 
meaning of the text. "Being justified freely," signifies 
a gift unmerited by us, "not by works of righteousness 
which we have done, but according to his mercy he 
saved us." It denotes the manner in which the blessing 



was bestowed. Il was the result of the pure lorn 
who provided the means erf one d ilivery 1>\ his 

only begotten Sou into the world, to die for as; that he 
might become the propitiation for our sins/and reconcile 

us to God. 

Again, in 1 Cor. vi. 20, "For yc are bought with a 
price." The Socinians have founded another argument 
upon forgiving sins according to the verbiage of this 
text. That sin is forgiven as a debt, is canceled. Hence 
atonement is left out of the question. But when sin is 
spoken of as a debt, a metaphor is plainly employed. 
Says Mr. Watson, "It would be a novel rule to interpret 
what is plainly literal by what is metaphorical. There 
is, undoubtedly, something in the act of forgiving which 
is common with the act of remitting a debt by a creditor, 
or there would be no foundation for the metaphor ; but 
it can by no means legitimately follow, that the remis- 
sion of sins is, in all its circumstances, to be interpreted 
by all the circumstances which accompany the free re- 
mission of a debt. We know, on the contrary, that re- 
mission of sins is not unconditional ; repentance and faith 
are required in order to it, which is acknowledged by the 
Socinians themselves. But this acknowledgment is fatal 
to the argument they would draw from the instances in 
the New Testament, in which Almighty God is repre- 
sented as a merciful creditor, freely forgiving his insol- 
vent debtors ; for if the act of remitting sins be in all re- 
spects like the act of forgiving debts, then indeed can 
neither repentance, nor faith, nor condition of any kind. 



174 CHRIST A SACRIFICE FOR SIN. 

be insisted upon in order to forgiveness ; since in the in- 
stances referred to, the debtors were discharged without 
any expressed condition at all." 

Again: But something beyond repentance and faith 
was necessary in order that sins be forgiven. "It be- 
hooved Christ to suffer, and to rise from the dead on the 
third day," that " repentance and remission of sins should 
be preached in his name among all nations." If by an 
act of divine prerogative, without regard to justice or 
right, he would forgive sins, then there would be no 
necessity for " Christ to suffer ;V and the offer of remis- 
sion of sins wholly independent of his sufferings, which 
is contrary to the Scriptures. " The idea of absolute 
right in one party, and of binding obligation on the 
other, holds good equally as to the law-giver and the 
transgressor, the creditor and the debtor." The one has 
a right to demand obedience, the other to demand his 
property. Every crime involves an obligation to pun- 
ishment, but when sin is forgiven the liability to punish- 
ment is removed ; as when a debt is paid all obligations 
are removed touching the debt. But the Scriptures con- 
necting the pardon of sin with a previous atonement 
cannot be carried farther. The holiness of the nature of 
God demands penal sanctions against offences commit- 
ted. That hypothesis which has mercy, and mercy 
only administered on a mere principle of feeling, without 
regard to holiness or justice, is not the doctrine of the 
Bible. But, the doctrine which connects pardon with 
the meritorious death of Christ, exemplifies both the 



OHIira I I \« UFB I n»i; -in. i ; 5 

justice and mercy of ( lod •• It the un< time i< ■ oardi 
with | ;trine of non-impunity to mh. 

impunity to the mm r." And the m< dium tin 

: this offering ia made, .-t\< b to 
to sin, and shows his character of justice at the 

time. JesUS " ( Ihriat, our pass-o\ 

r. v. 7. In Colos. i. 14, 15, wu are said to have 

"redemption through his blood, who is the image of the 

invisible God." Again, 1 Cor. ii. 8, it is said, c; thcy 
would not have crucified the Lord of life and glory." 
The blood of Christ is called '"precious." From these 
passages we gather the facts, that the sacrifice offered to 
satisfy divine justice, was no mean offering; it was not 
the blood of bulls and of goats, but the precious blood of 
Christ. This contradicts the Socinian theory, namely, 
that the blood of Christ was no more efficacious in an- 
swering its end than the blood of animals shed under 
the law. Again, the apostle says, " How much more 
shall the blood of Christ, who,' through the eternal 
Spirit, offered himself without spot to God, purge your 
conscience from dead works to serve the living God." 

But another objection is, that because the divinity suf- 
fers not, therefore it does not enter into this consideration 
of punishment. " This is as much as to say, that it is an 
offence of the same kind, whether you strike a private 
person or a king, a stranger or a father, because blows 
are directed against the body, not against dignity or rela- 
tionship." 

Though, by the death of Christ, men are put in a sal- 



176 CHRIST A SACRIFICE FOR SIN. 

vable state, yet none of them are by this act of Christ 
brought from under the moral law. As this law re- 
mains in its full force, and as sinners continue under the 
" original obligation of obedience, so in case of those 
conditions not being complied with, on which the actual 
communication of the benefits of redemption has been 
made to depend, and those who neglect the great salva- 
tion offered to them by Christ, fall under the full original 
penalty of the law, and are left to its malediction, with- 
out obstruction to the exercise and infliction of divine 
justice." (Watson.) 

7. It may be asked, to them that flee to Christ for 
mercy, by repentance and faith, can the law still hold its 
justice and rigor % The answer is, certainly, the law did 
not give up any of its claim, but its demands are all fully 
satisfied through Christ. The end of justification is not 
to set men free from the law, but from its punishment. 
With " justification, but distinct from it is the communi- 
cation of the regenerating grace of the Holy Spirit," by 
which the corrupt nature of man is purified and re- 
stored to the love of holiness, and power to practice it ; 
as those who, as the apostle argues, Rom. vi. 2, are thus 
"dead to sin cannot continue any longer therein," but 
bring forth the fruits of righteousness, or of the Spirit, 
which are love, joy, peace, &c. 

By this divine plan, the law of God is not repealed, 
but established. 

Again: Some affirm, that we cannot know "the vin- 
culum, or bond of connection, between the sufferings of 



onusT i a a km h i poi 1 1 J 

Christ, aad the pardon of no, and tins, therefore, thi 
place among the myi 

this ::i obscure \ iewi of the atonement I It ap- 

pears so to us, as the connection of ( 'hrist's Buffering ap- 
pear* to be matter of revelation, il l>< ing called the il dem- 
onstration o( the righteousm bs ol ( tod, 11 of bis righteous 
character ami just administration, making provision for 
the honorable " exercise of mercy without impeachm< nl 
of justice, or any repeal or relaxation of bis 1 1 

We have read of a ••Locrian legislator voluntarily 
suffering the loss of one of his eyes, to save that of hlf 
son condemned by his own statutes to lose both, and did 
this that the law might neither be repealed, nor exist 
without efficacy. Who docs not see that the authority of 
his laws was as much, nay more, impressively sanctioned 
than if his son had endured the full penalty ?" This will 
only apply to the point in hand, as it has not a general 
application to the work of Christ. Here u Mercy and 
truth meet together, righteousness and peace kiss each 
other." 

Still, it is objected, by the opponents of the doctrine of 
atonement, to the K justice of laying the punishment of 
the guilty upon the innocent." In answer to this objec- 
tion, we present the following: " It is most certain, all 
who make them do not see the consequence, that they 
conclude altogether as much against God's whole origi- 
nal constitution of nature, and the whole daily course of 
Divine Providence in the government of the world, i. c. 
against the whole scheme of Theism, and the whole 
16 



178 CHRIST A SACRIFICE FOR SIN. 

notion of religion, as against Christianity. For the 
world is a constitution or system, whose parts have a 
mutual reference to each other : and there is a scheme 
of things gradually carrying on, called the course of na- 

Iture, to the carrying on of which God has appointed us, 
in various ways, to contribute. And when, in the daily 
course of natural providence, it is appointed that inno- 
cent people should suffer for the faults of the guilty, this 
is liable to the very same objection, as the instance we 
are now considering. The infinitely greater importance 
of that appointment of Christianity which is objected 
against, does not hinder, but it may be, as it plainly is, 
an appointment of the very same kind with what the 
world affords us daily examples of. Nay, if there were 
any force at all in the objection, it would be stronger, in 
one respect, against natural providence, than against 
Christianity ; because, under the former, we are in many 
cases commanded, and even necessitated whether we 
will or not, to suffer for the faults of others; whereas 
the sufferings of Christ were voluntary. The world 
being under the righteous government of God does im- 
ply, that finally and upon the whole, every one shall re- 
ceive according to his personal deserts ; and the general 
doctrine of the whole Scripture is, that this shall be the 
completion of the divine government. But during the 
progress, and, for aught we know, even in order to 
the completion of this moral scheme, vicarious punish- 
ment may be fit, and absolutely necessary. Men, by 
their follies, run themselves into extreme difficulties 



(xnavf \ iaobzfioi mi >w i n 

which would be absolutely fatal to thou, w< t<- \\ not for 
the interposition ami assistance of others. ( tod com- 
mands by the law o( nature, that we afford tin in this 
assistance, m many cases where wt cannol do it without 
very great pains, and labor, and suffering to ouraeb 

And wc see in what variety of ways one person'* suffer- 
ings contribute to the relief of another : and how, or by 
what particular means, this comes to pass, or follows, 
from the constitution and laws of nature, Which came 
under our notice ; and being familiarized to it, men are 
not shocked with it. So that the reason of their insist- 
ing upon objections of the foregoing kind against the 
satisfaction of Christ, is either that they do not consider 
God's settled and uniform appointments as his appoint- 
ments at all ; or else forget that vicarious punishment is 
a providential appointment of every day's experience ; 
and then, from their being unacquainted with the more 
general laws of nature or divine government over the 
world, and not seeing how the sufferings of Christ could 
contribute to the redemption of it, unless by arbitrary 
and tyrannical will ; they conclude his sufferings could 
not" contribute to it in any other way.* 

Parents and friends endure labor and make sacrifices 
for their children. To save a fellow creature from per- 
ishing by water or fire, generous men have exposed 
themselves not only to pain but often to death, yet the 
claims of humanity are considered sufficient to justify 

* Bishop Butler's Analogy of Religion, p. 222. 



180 CHRIST A SACRIFICE FOR SIN* 

such deeds, which are always applauded. When men 
fight for their country's liberty, &c, on justifiable ground, 
the opinion is, that the life of every man is placed by 
Providence at the disposal of his country, and this justi- 
fies the hazard. In times of religious persecution, it is 
right to suffer, and even to die, rather than to deny 
Christ. And no one argues that it was not right for the 
martyr to die, to suffer the pains of the rack and the 
fire. And God himself has not only permitted it, but 
blessed them in the flames, in their expiring moments. 
So men have suffered and even died for the benefit of 
others. Still we do not adduce these cases as a parallel 
of the death of Christ for sinners ; but to show that it 
agrees with the "ordinary course of Providence, and 
by the express appointment of God." Farther, we know 
that there is no instance of a legal substitution of one 
person for another: human governments could not in 
justice cause the innocent to suffer for the guilty, for that 
would be unjust to him. Says Rev. R. Watson, "They 
could not accept his offer, were he ever so anxious to be- 
come the substitute of another, for that would be unjust 
to God, since they have no authority from him so to 
take away the life of one of his creatures, and the person 
himself has no authority to offer it. In the case of St. 
Paul we see a willing sufferer ; he chose to die * for the 
elect's sake," and that he might publish the gospel to 
the world. Was it, then, unjust in God to accept this 
offering of generous devotedness for the good of man- 
kind, when the offering was in obedience to his own 



cueist a limn n nm 1 r i 

Will/ Certainly not. The HUM OoMietttiOBi Ofehofcfe 

and right unite in the Btrffelfagl of our Lord; though 
the case itself was one of an infinitely highei 
circumstance which strengthens but does nol change the 
principle. He was a wilting substitute. 91 And hecoaU 

say, "No man taketh my life from me; hut I lay it down 
of myself." Jesus Christ was not a mere creature; hence 
he had a right of doing so in a sense that no on* 
had. He died not only because the Father willed it, but 
because he had the supreme power of death, and, there- 
fore, from his benevolence to man, he chose to die ; hence, 
in this there was a perfect concurrence between the Law- 
giver and Jesus Christ, our substitute. To say that this 
was unjust, is to say that the right of some one was in- 
vaded, which was not so; therefore it is in perfect accord- 
ance with the justice of God, and truly comports with 
the moral government of Jehovah, that Christ died for 
Adam and his posterity. 

8. This atonement was made by Jesus Christ as very 
God and very man. For apart from " God manifested 
in the flesh," such an atonement could not have been 
made as Jesus Christ made by his suffering and death ; 
no, not all the Intelligences of heaven could have atoned 
for the human race. That sealed book which no man, 
Oudeis, ®v$£i$) no person, or being, " in heaven, nor in 
earth, neither under the earth, was able to open the 
book," but "the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of 
David, hath prevailed to open the book." Rev. v. 3, 5. 



182 CHRIST A SACRIFICE FOR SIN. 

One mystery of this book was the redemption of a lost or 
fallen world which none in the universe but Jesus Christ 
could redeem. 

Again: It is too obvious to be doubted, that the Al- 
mighty hates all species of idolatry. This he prohibits 
in the very commencement of the sacred decalogue, 
which he wrote with his own fingers on two tables of 
stone, for the Israelites, and all people favored with di- 
vine revelation. " Thou shalt not make unto thee any 
graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in 
heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is 
in the water under the earth : Thou shalt not bow down 
to them, nor serve them : for I the Lord thy God am a 
jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the 
children unto the third and fourth generation of them 
that hate me." Exo. xx. 4, 5. Again, Exo. xxii. 20: 
" He that sacrificeth unto any God, save unto the Lord 
only, he shall be utterly destroyed." 1 John v. 21 : 
" Little children, keep yourselves from idols." 

Many of those called Campbellites and Newlights, in 
both their preaching and praying, &c, call upon Jesus 
Christ to intercede, to hear and bless them. They speak 
of him as their Redeemer and Saviour, as well as pray 
in his name. Still these very people pointedly deny that 
Jesus Christ is " God over all and blessed for ever," or 
that in Christ " dwelleth the fullness of the Godhead 
bodily." Colos. ii. 9. Yet, though they deny his su- 
preme divinity, nevertheless they have Christ some way 



CHRIST A SACRIFICE ran 1 V 

or other in their religious ceremonii 8, they call upon his 
name, flbc. 

Now, to the point: if they deny Christ's supreme di- 
vinity, in other words, if they will not worship him at 
equal with the Father, as possessing the u Qodhead bodi- 
ly f is it possible for them to worship the Father? — 
We answer, no, from the words of Jesus Christ himself. 
John v. 22, 23 : " For the Father judgeth no man ; but 
hath committed all judgment unto the Son. That all 
men should honor the Son, even as they honor the Fath- 
er. He that honor eth not the So?i, honoreth not the 
Father which hath sent him." So we see plainly, that 
there cannot be a religious man, a purely religious hon- 
orer of the Father, who does not honor the Son as he 
honors the Father. So all sects, and denominations, 
and individuals that honor not the Lord Jesus Christ in 
spirit and in truth, never did nor never can worship the 
true God. 

Again: No man, or class of men, who deny the su- 
preme deity of Jesus Christ, can consistently believe in 
the true Scriptural atonement made by our Lord Jesus 
Christ ; hence their minds must necessarily be in dark- 
ness, and their faith obscure, if they have any at all. Is 
not this the reason why some sects of those unbelievers 
put so much stress in water baptism, and other non-essen- 
tial ceremonies? Some of thern do make immersion es- 
sential to salvation. Mr. Alex. Campbell asserts, in his 
u Millennial Harbinger," " It is not our faith in God's 
promises of remission, but of our going down into the 



184 CHRIST A SACRIFICE FOR SIN. 

water, that obtains the remission of sins." Again, the 
same writer affirms, " Remission of sins cannot, in this 
life, be received or enjoyed previous to immersion." — 
Hence, I cannot believe that such a man as Mr. C. can 
possibly have a correct Biblical view of the atonement 
made by the blessed Saviour; and it is no marvel that the 
same gentleman asserts, that he " disavowed Trinitarian- 
ism, and every other sectarianism in the land." 

Once more: So far as our observation has extended, 
the deniers of the divinity of Christ and his atonement, 
do not observe to keep holy the Christian Sabbath, either 
themselves or their offspring. This is ruinous to morals 
and Christianity. And if they repent not, God will hold 
them guilty in the day of judgment. Hence, not to be- 
lieve in the divinity and atonement, is to caricature the 
love of God, as manifested to mankind through Christ. 
If Jesus was only a created, peculiar being, then God 
was not manifested in the flesh according to the Scrip- 
tures, 1 Tim. iii. 16; but he created a peculiar Being 
for the purpose of atoning for the world. On this hy- 
pothesis, God did not love us so much as to come him- 
self, but he made and sent one. But, if Jehovah had 
sent the assembled universe to try to redeem men, they 
could not have effected it; neither could they have mani- 
fested the love of God toward us, as God did by coming 
himself and taking our nature upon him, and in that hu- 
man soul and body, by virtue of his divinity, suffered 
and died, and thereby made a plenary atonement for all 
mankind. 



CHRIST A SACRIFICE FOR SIX. 185 

We may remark' again, that the unbelievers in the 
Deity of Christ, under whatsoever name they may be 
called, rob him of divine honor. The self-same divine 
honor that the Father merits the Son merits. (John v. 
23.) Then to dishonor the Son is to affront the Father, 
for " He that honoreth not the Son, honoreth not the 
Father." And why so? The Saviour gives the rea- 
son, " I and my Father are one." On this very ground, 
says the Saviour, " If any man serve me, him will my 
Father honor." (John xii. 26.) Consequently those 
that serve not Christ, the Father will not honor, there- 
fore they cannot be servants of God, not Christians in 
the Scriptural sense, which is clearly shown from the 
Scriptures : " He that believeth on the Son hath ever- 
lasting life ; and he that believeth not the Son shall not 
see life ; but the wrath of God abideth on him." John 
iii. 36. 

To believe in Christ as the Scriptures reveal him, is 
the belief that is required. 

1. The Scriptures reveal him as " God over all and 
blessed for ever;" as God having an everlasting throne. 
u Thy throne, O God, is forever and ever." These are 
the words of the Father to Christ his Son. Heb. i. 8. 

2. The Scriptures reveal him as being a perfect man, 
having both a human soul and body. 

3. The Scriptures reveal him as a vicarious, sacri- 
ficial offering for the sins of the world. Then we are 
to believe on him as perfect man and very God; as dy- 
ing for us, to redeem us from the curse of the law, and 



186 CHRIST A SACRIFICE FOR SIN. 

through his blood by the agency of the Holy Spirit, to 
prepare us for eternal life. To believe in Christ in the 
proper Scriptural sense, is to believe him equal with the 
Father in power, majesty, and dominion ; for unless this 
be so, he cannot be an object of worship equal with the 
Father, as he says himself, " I and my Father are one." 
And if we do not believe him equal with the Father, and 
the same with the Father, we cannot honor him as one 
with the Father. And " he that honoreth not the Son, 
honoreth not the Father." The unbelievers in the su- 
preme divinity of the Son, cannot honor him as they 
honor the Father, for they profess to believe that the 
Father only is the supreme God, and worthy of supreme 
honor. Hence they deny three persons in the Adorable 
Godhead, though the Scriptures reveal them. Hence, 
they cannot believe Christ Jesus as God over all and 
blessed for ever, therefore cannot worship or honor him 
as God ; as the Father : consequently, " he that honor- 
etn not the Son, honoreth not the Father ; and he that 
believeth not the Son shall not see life ; but the wrath of 
God abideth on him." Johniii. 36. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

Faith essential to Salvation — Justification ani> 
Sanctification by Faith. 

In the foregoing chapter we discover that the Scrip- 
tures prove that Christ has made a vicarious, penal, and 
a plenary offering for the world. It may be then asked 
in conclusion — " If so, is not our salvation absolutely 
secured?" This is not exactly so. There is a differ- 
ence between redemption, and salvation. The former sig- 
nifies, theologically "the ransom or deliverance of sin- 
ners from the bondage of sin and the penalties of God's 
violated law by the atonement of Christ." (Webster.) 
The latter embraces the former, but means something 
besides, that is, it signifies deliverance from sin and the 
effects of sin in time and in eternity, and it confers ever- 
lasting happiness. In connection with a state of proba- 
tion it embraces remission of sins, pardon, justification 
and sanctification. Then every reader must see that 
these blessings are connected with the absolute divinity 
of Christ, as well as his real humanity, suffering and 
death; for without these, there could not possibly be hope 
for man after all, according to the moral agency of 
man, and the government of Jehovah. It hath pleased 



188 



FAITH. 



God to enjoin one particular on man, called in the Bible, 
faith, whereby he may be a partaker of the blessings of 
the atonement and secure salvation through our Lord 
Jesus Christ. 

Then, faith is essentially necessary to our salvation. 
Where God has made a revelation of himself to man, 
through the Scriptures, all rights, or ceremonies, if 
necessity require, may be omitted, but faith in Christ 
cannot, if salvation be secured. But if circumstances 
admit of it, all the ceremonies of the Gospel and means 
of grace should be received in connection with faith. 

There is no salvation apart from faith in Christ Jesus. 
The Saviour himself and his apostles prove this beyond 
doubt. Belief and faith are nearly synonimous, as terms 
purporting that act of the human heart, whereby the 
virtue of the blood of Christ is applied to the soul by 
which we are justified in the sight of God. Now for the 
testimony. 

" I said, therefore, unto you, that ye shall die in your 
sins : for if ye believe not that I am he, ye shall die in 
your sins." John viii. 24. " He that believeth and is 
baptized shall be saved ; but he that believeth not shall 
be damned." Mark xvi. 16. 

" That they all might be damned who believed not 
the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness." 2 Thess. 
ii. 12. 

" And to whom sware he, that they should not enter 
into his rest, but to them that believed not?" Hebrews 
iii. 18. 



r.wTir. 189 

"But ha that believeth not is condemned already; be- 
cause he hath not believed ID the name of the only be- 
gotten Son of God/' John in. 18. 

"He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting lift 
and he that believeth not the Son shall not lee life; but 
the wrath of God abideth on him." John iii. 36, 

" But without faith it is impossible to please him: for 
he that cometh to God, must believe that he is, and (hat 
he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him." He- 
brews xi. 6. 

Without faith we discover plainly, that we cannot be 
justified, but must suffer the abiding wrath of God ; and 
by having it we can be justified, if all things else fail. 
Rev. Alex. Campbell,* has asserted recently that " justi- 
fication is ascribed to seven causes," viz: to faith, to 
grace, to the blood of Christ, to works, to the name of 
Christ, to Christ, to knowledge. What would a peni- 
tent sinner seeking justification understand by such a pre- 
sentation of things? "By works," says he, and quotes 
James ii. 21, 25, to prove it. As if a fallen sinner be- 
fore justification could have works to justify him, or that 
a corrupt tree could bring forth good fruit. " As rea- 
sonably" says Mr. Campbell, "might you pray for loaves 
from heaven, or manna, because Israel eat it in the des- 
ert, as to pray for pardon, while you refuse the remission 
of sins by immersion.*! 

Neither Mr. C. nor any other man on earth, can prove, 

* Christian System, p. 258. 
t Christian System, 251. 



190 FAITH. 

either that immersion is the proper, and only mode of 
baptism, or that it is the condition of the pardon of sin or 
justification. Surely he will not point to the baptism of 
Christ, for he had no sins to be pardoned ; or to Simon 
Magus, for though baptized, and if Mr. Campbell please 
immersed, and he neither received pardon of sins or jus- 
tification, but remained in " the gall of bitterness and in 
the bond of iniquity." Acts viii. 23. 

1. But, it is objected by some, that any should be lost 
for the lack of faith, as all have faith, less or more. 

In answer, we say, all have not saving faith, or fidu- 
cial reliance on Christ. " For all men have not faith." 
2 Thess. iii. 2. There are others in a worse state still, 
as we learn from the Scriptures. ' ; Now, as Jannes and 
Jambres withstood Moses, so do these also resist the truth; 
men of corrupt minds, reprobate concerning the faith." 
2 Tim. iii. 8. 

" There must be good works with faith," as St. James 
says, ii. 26. We answer not at all. The stream must 
partake of the nature of the fountain, and the fruit of the 
tree. Before justification there can be no works of right- 
eousness. " Can a fig tree, my brethren, bear olive ber- 
ries? either a vine, figs? so can no fountain both yield 
salt water and fresh." James iii. 11, 12. 

But does not St. James say, that " faith without works 
ia dead?" St. James here condemns a dead faith, and 
not the faith of the heart which " works by love." But 
something like a bare theoretic faith, which can be no 



RUTH. 1 ( H 

saving benefit to us. The apostle does not condemn the 
doctrine that we are saved in Christ by faith alone. 

We have shown from the Scripture, that without faith 
it is impossible to please God, and whosoever lias it not 
cannot be saved, but the wrath of God abideth on him. 
Now we prove that justification comes by faith in Christ 
Jesus alone. Rom. v. 1. " Therefore, being justified by 
faith, we have peace with God, through our Lord Jesus 
Christ." This text is to the point. By faith in the 
days of Christ the maimed were not only healed, but 
they received pardon of all their sins. Jesus said unto 
the Cl sick of the palsy, son be of good cheer, thy sins be 
forgiven thee." Matt. ix. 2. Christ said to the woman 
who was affected with an issue of blood, " Daughter, be 
of good comfort; thy faith hath made thee whole. 1 ' Matt, 
ix. 22. As the blind men followed Christ, crying, 
;c Thou Son of David, have mercy on us. Jesus saith 
unto them, Believe ye that I am able to do this? They 
said unto him, yea, Lord. Then touched he their eyes, 
saying, According to your faith, be it unto you." Matt, 
ix. 28, 29. 

When the woman of Canaan cried after the Saviour 
in behalf of her daughter, " Then Jesus answered and 
said unto her, O, woman, great is thy faith ; be it unto 
thee even as thou wilt. And her daughter was made 
whole from that very hour," Matt. xv. 28. 

The Centurion of Capernaum thought himself not 
worthy that Christ should come under his roof, but 
desired him to speak the word only. " And Jesus said 



192 FAITH. 

unto the Centurion, Go thy way, and as thou hast be- 
lieved, so be it done unto thee. And his servant was 
healed in the self-same hour," Matt. viii. 13. 

Again: Hear what the Saviour said to the blind 
beggar of Jericho : " What wilt thou that I shall do 
unto thee ? And he said, Lord, that I may receive my 
sight. And Jesus said unto him, Receive thy sight — 
thy faith hath saved thee," Luke xviii. 41, 42. 

Whether we behold the cripple at Lystra, or the lame 
man at the beautiful gate of the temple, or any other 
case in the New Testament, all received their cures and 
pardon of their sins through faith in Christ Jesus. 
Again: " For we walk by faith, not by sight," 2. Cor. 
v. 7. " That they may receive forgiveness of sins, and 
inheritance among them which are sanctified by faith 
that is in me." Here we see that forgiveness of 
sins is obtained by faith in Christ, and faith alone. 
Furthermore, " But to him that worketh not, but believ- 
eth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is 
counted for righteousness," Rom. iv. 5. These, and 
hundreds of other texts which we might adduce, if 
necessary, prove that faith, and faith alone, is the condi- 
tion of our salvation. Justification comes by faith in 
Christ — instance the last quoted text : " Him that work- 
eth not, but believeth" 

Sanctification is received by faith, and faith alone. 
When the Pharisees disputed with St. Peter touching 
the circumcising of some Gentiles, the apostle said, 
that God " put no difference between us and them, pu- 



FAITH. 

rifying- their hearts by faith," &c, Acts xv. ft— 10. 
"That Christ may dwell in your hearts l, v that 

ye, being rooted and grounded in love/' Kph. ni. 17. 
"That they may receive forgiveness of sins, and inheri- 
tance among them which are sanctified by faith that is 
in me," Acts xxvi. 18. We are not only sanctiiied by 
faith, but after being justified and sanctified, we are to 
live by faith. " The just (or righteous) shall live by 
faith," Gal. iii. 11. We have just said that justifi- 
cation is received by faith, and that sanctification likewise 
is obtained by faith. These are two different blessings, 
and not as the Council of Trent would state them. The 
Council says, " That justification is not only the remis- 
sion of sins, but also the sanctification of the inner man." 
That justification and sanctification go together, we be- 
lieve, and thus conclude* but this is not what is meant 
by the Council, but that a man is made just or holy, 
and then justified. According to them sanctification is 
the formal cause of justification, which cannot be any 
more than justification can be the formal cause of 
glorification. 

Some affirm, that faith apprehends and appropriates 
the merits of Christ's death to make up for the deficiency 
of our imperfect obedience. This view of the matter 
is sufficiently refuted, from the fact that the Scriptures 
neither intimate nor teach any such a thing. Either 
this imperfect obedience has a share in our justification 
or it has not ; if it has, then we are saved by faith and 
works united, which has been destroyed, or disproved, 
17 



194 FAITH. 

as above shown. Then, we conclude, that we are jus- 
tified, or what is equivalent, pardoned, by faith alone, 
without works or merit of our own. 

It is by others intimated, that faith, as per se> is the 
necessary root of obedience ; so that pardon by faith 
may still be allowed, and faith in itself is such an ex- 
cellent virtue, that it naturally produces good works. 
This theory has been advocated by many of the primi- 
tive divines. To say that faith is the " root and mother 
of obedience," is to say, indirectly, that regeneration 
does precede pardon of sin, which is not the fact ; for 
until pardon, man is under bondage, and does not ,c walk 
after the Spirit." But as nearly all agree, that faith 
does precede pardon, if so, it cannot therefore presup- 
pose a regenerate state of mind. The truth is, then, 
that faith does not produce obedience. Faith unites us 
to Christ, and gives us a personal interest in the cove- 
nant of God's mercies, from which flow the gift of the 
Holy Ghost, and the regeneration of our nature. Mr. 
John Wesley affirms, in one of his sermons on faith, 
that "there is no justification without faith. He is still 
a child of wrath, still under the curse, till he believes in 
Jesus. Faith, therefore, is the necessary condition of 
justification ; yea, the only necessary condition thereof. 
We mean, thereby, this much, that it is the only thing 
without which no one is justified; the only thing that is 
immediately, indispensably, absolutely requisite in order 
to pardon. As, on the other hand, though a man should 
have every thing else, without faith, yet he cannot be 



i \mi. 198 

justified; so, on the other, though he be supposed to 
want every thing if be hath faith, be cannot 

but be justified." Therefore, we conclude, that a fa 

or fiducial reliance in the absolute divinity of ( Mm 
in the vicarious and piaculai atonement of the L 

God, is requisite to our salvation. And this ofll 
made by our Lord, embraces his supreme Deity and hu- 
manity, which, as we have proved form the character of 
our Lord Jesus Christ. 



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